Harry Potter and the Critical Game
by Montenya of the Fairies
Summary: A different kind of Gamer fic. Harry Potter is sent back in time against his will and forced to redo his life for the sake of humanity. The last chapter will always be current stats.
1. Prologue

"Vernon!"

Harry forced his eyes open when he heard the shout. For some reason he felt very off, almost weak, and as he opened his eyes he realized why. He was in a basket on a very familiar front step in front of Number 4 Privet Drive. This was very off-putting because his last memory was of being seventeen and having a streak of green light shot at him from Riddle.

 **LIFE: TAKE TWO**

 **Hello Mr. Potter. Your universe has recently been taken over by new management who were… displeased with the recent course of events. You, as well as 26 others around the world, have been given the chance to save this world from being destroyed.**

 **While each of you have been given different duties, the basic premise is the same. You were born as a pivotal person at a pivotal point in time that occurred within the last 30 years 5 days 16 hours 7 minutes 41 seconds (Earth-time) of new management taking over. During that pivotal time some things went wrong, and the world's progress slowed considerably.**

 **In your case you must completely rework the British magical country and have some impact on other magical countries which are seen to be delaying progress, including magical Prussia. The latter goal is secondary.**

 **You have been sent back to being dropped off at your maternal aunt's house in order to give you sufficient time to accomplish these goals.**

 **Given that the cards, as the earthen expression goes, have been stacked against you, as well as the 26 others in your position, you will be given a tool to help you.**

 **As you may or may not be aware, there are a number of 'video games' in which one's skill can be easily measured. Your life now mimics these 'video games'. You have 25 years 4 days 10 hours 11 minutes and 4 seconds to show noticeable progress towards your goal, and 52 years 285 days 55 minutes and 0 seconds to complete your goal sufficiently.**

 **Good luck.**

That was… worrying.

"Vernon! There's a baby on the porch! Oh my god, I think it's Lily's freak son!"

So was that.


	2. Chapter 1

A one year old toddler sat in a basket in a cupboard under the stairs. He'd been left there what must have been hours ago, and the door was locked. He'd explored the cupboard thoroughly during that time, stumbling about on weak legs and falling constantly, but in that hour he had managed to ascertain, to the best of his ability, that nothing had changed since he was a teenager with the exception of the future addition of a bed and mattress as well as what few belongings he had collected over the years.

After finishing his complete and exhaustive analysis of his former bedroom, he'd crawled back into the basket and tried desperately to think of anything other than the message.

Harry James Potter, born July 31st just over a year prior and sent back to his former body mere hours ago, failed.

Finally he gave up. He tried desperately to remember how all of Dudley's games had started, and finally thought as loudly as he could: _MENU._

 **MENU  
-Advantages and Disadvantages**

 **-Skills**

 **-Status**

 **-Goals**

 **-Pause Game**

 **-End Game**

He decided to start from the bottom.

 **END GAME**

 **Warning! If you select this option then your world will be promptly terminated. Should you feel that your goal is too difficult then you may choose this option, but it is highly advised you do not.**

Okay… so it looked like he'd be playing along for a while, at least.

 **PAUSE GAME**

 **In this state the entire world except for your thought processes stop until such a time as you un-pause the game. You may only explore the menu while the game is paused. Any current sensations with the exception of vision will also be paused.**

That seemed helpful. That he'd stop feeling hungry the second he selected the option was helpful too. He kept the game paused and returned to the menu.

 **GOALS**

 **Elective Goals**

 **Current Goals**

Harry decided to start from the bottom again.

 **CURRENT GOALS**

 **-Save Wizarding Britain!—To complete this goal the country of magical Britain must be completely reformed to allow for more equal opportunity and fall more in line with the standards of the majority of the rest of the world, at minimum. (1,000,000,000 XP)**

 **-Save Wizarding Europe!—While no magical European country has fallen back as much as Magical Britain, many are well behind their non-magical counterparts as well as the rest of the world in terms of progress. To complete this goal there must be a visible effort by at least three Wizarding countries to move towards more equal opportunity. (100,000 XP per country)**

 **-Save the World!—If you accomplish your goal and your 26 peers accomplish theirs then the experiment will be considered a success and Earth will be allowed to continue. (MAX XP)**

No pressure, huh?

 **ELECTIVE GOALS  
-Food!—Food is necessary to life and it has been too long since you were last fed. Get and eat food. (10 XP)**

 **-Bathroom!—You feel an increased pressure in your bladder. Time to relieve it. (10 XP)**

Both of those seemed like fairly good goals, for all that he wasn't looking forward to the second one. He added them to his current goals list.

 **STATUS**

 **Level: 1 (Note: the average person takes about a year to level up until approximately level 25. Each time you level up you will be allowed to add 5 skill levels.)**

 **Health: 143/150**

 **Ingestion: 28/100**

 **Excretion: 34/100**

 **Energy: 92/100**

About what he expected. He was sure that health was about to take a steep fall though. Skill levels, on the other hand…

 **SKILLS**

 **MENTAL**

 **-Perception: MAX (Recognition and interpretation of sensori stimuli)**

 **-Attention: MAX (Ability to concentrate and manage competing demands)**

 **-Memory: MAX (Ability to remember past events)**

 **-Spoken English: 84 (The ability to use English to communicate and understand orally)**

 **-Spoken Latin: 15 (The ability to use Latin to communicate and understand orally)**

 **-Spoken French: 2 (The ability to use French to communicate and understand orally)**

 **-Spoken Spanish: 5 (The ability to use Spanish to communicate and understand orally)**

 **-Spoken Snake: 27 (The ability to use the language of snakes to communicate and understand orally)**

 **-Other Languages: 0 (The ability to use any other language)**

 **-Written English: 76 (The ability to use English to communicate and understand in writing)**

 **-Written Latin: 3 (The ability to use Latin to communicate and understand in writing)**

 **-Written French: 1 (The ability to use French to communicate and understand in writing)**

 **-Written Spanish: 2 (The ability to use Spanish to communicate and understand in writing)**

 **-Music: 2 (The ability to use an instrument to play music)**

 **-Finance: 28 (The ability to manage money)**

 **-Agriculture: 56 (The ability to work with plants)**

 **-Visual Arts: 15 (The ability to create visual artwork)**

 **-Literary Arts: 34 (The ability to tell a story)**

 **-Biology: 25 (The ability to understand Biology)**

 **-Chemistry: 24 (The ability to understand Chemistry)**

 **-Physics: 20 (The ability to understand Physics)**

 **-Algebra: 20 (The ability to understand Algebra)**

 **-Geometry: 14 (The ability to understand Geometry)**

 **-Trigonometry: 2 (The ability to understand Trigonometry)**

 **-Calculus: 4 (The ability to understand Calculus)**

 **-Engineering: 28 (The ability to apply knowledge to invent, build, maintain, and improve)**

 **-Technology: 14 (The ability to understand and use technological equipment)**

 **-Medicine: 20 (The ability to care for the health of oneself or others)**

 **-Law: 26 (The ability to understand the law)**

 **-Psychology: 14 (The ability to understand the workings of the human brain)**

 **-Culinary: 40 (The ability to cook)**

 **PHYSICAL**

 **-Respiratory Endurance: 7 (The ability to gather, process, and deliver oxygen)**

 **-Stamina: 7 (The ability to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy)**

 **-Strength: 10 (The ability of a muscular unit to apply force)**

 **-Flexibility: 11 (The ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint)**

 **-Power: 6 (The ability of a muscular unit to apply maximum force in minimum time)**

 **-Speed: 8 (The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement)**

 **-Coordination: 5 (The ability to combine several movement patterns into a single movement)**

 **-Agility: 8 (The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another)**

 **-Balance: 4 (The ability to control the placement of the body center to its support base)**

 **-Accuracy: 5 (The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity)**

 **-Vitality: 4 (Resistance to physical attacks)**

 **-Flying: 94 (The ability to use a specifically spelled broom to fly through the air)**

 **MAGICAL**

 **-Wand Magic: 18 (The ability to use a wand to preform magic)**

 **-Runic Magic: 0 (The ability to use writing to perform magic)**

 **-Staff Magic: 0 (The ability to use a staff to preform magic)**

 **-Oral Magic: 10 (The ability to use speech to preform magic)**

 **-Intent Magic: 6 (The ability to use intent to preform magic)**

 **-Alchemy: 0 (The ability to permanently transform matter)**

 **-Arithmancy: 5 (The ability to use magical math)**

 **-Charms: 65 (The ability to force a target to perform in a way contrary to its nature)**

 **-Divination: 0 (The ability to use one's magic to tell the future through a variety of means)**

 **-Legilimency: 0 (The ability to use magic to read another's mind)**

 **-Occlumency: 8 (The ability to use magic to protect one's mind from Legilimency)**

 **-Potions: 26 (The ability to combine various ingredients to create a potion with a magical effect)**

 **-Transfiguration: 65 (The ability to change the physical form of a target)**

 **-Enchanting: 0 (The ability to permanently add charms and runes to a target)**

 **-Magic: 85 (The ability to force magic to act in a certain way)**

 **-Magical Vitality: 87 (Resistance to magical attacks)**

 **SOCIAL**

 **-Teaching: 48 (The ability to teach others)**

 **-Negotiation: 14 (The ability to negotiate to a more pleasant outcome)**

 **-Seduction: 10 (The ability to gain another's attention in an amorous way)**

 **-Intimidation: 0 (The ability to intimidate to get a more pleasant outcome)**

Jesus… fucking… Christ. That was a long list. And from the looks of things, only his mental skills fully transferred. Both his magical and social skills seemed to have taken a hit, and his physical ones may as well have been nonexistent. Great. Just fucking wonderful.

Fine, okay. He'd deal. Next.

 **ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES**

 **-Boy Who Lived: Harry will be viewed as a celebrity by the magical community.**

 **-Unwanted Nephew: Harry will be maltreated by the Dursley family due to his magical nature, the lack of recompense, and the sudden nature of his arrival.**

 **-Odd Eyes: The unnaturally intelligent eyes of Harry Potter will cause sentient, half-sentient, and non-sentient creatures to act differently.**

 **-Myopia: Harry sees less clearly at a distance than the average human.**

 **-Controlled Transport: Unless in control, Harry will be unable to comfortably use magical transportation.**

 **-Curse Scar: Harry has a curse scar which was formed from protective runes hit by an overpowered 'dark' cutting curse.**

 **-Parseltongue: Harry can naturally communicate somewhat with snakes.**

That was… unexpected. He was hit by a cutting curse? And where was the horcrux? And where were the blood wards? Maybe they didn't count? But then why?

…There was no way he could find that out now. He guessed he'd have to wait.

He supposed the only thing left to do now was actually…

 **PLAY.**


	3. Chapter 2

It had unfortunately taken Harry screaming his head off before Aunt Petunia was willing to acknowledge him again, and then he'd had to shit his diaper and try to take it off before she was willing to change him. The second she was done, though, she tossed him back, though at least this time he was given juice in a sippy cup, two slices of whole wheat, and some cooked but cold broccoli. Harry scarfed it down. As he did so two notifications appeared.

 **Bathroom! Goal completed. 10 XP awarded.**

 **Food! Goal completed. 10 XP awarded.**

 **New goals available.**

Wonderful. And the best part was that even if Harry wanted to ignore the message, he kind of couldn't. There was simply nothing else to do.

[][][][][][][][][]

The rest of the year, and the year after that, and the year after that, passed in similar fashion. He regularly got quests with incredibly small awards that had goals like learning how to do something, light exercise, or obtaining something. Some of them weren't as bad as the others, however. Once he learned to walk on his own new quests involving getting and reading books began to pop up, and by his fourth birthday Harry had memorized sixteen 'books'—two children's story books, one about finance, another about gardening, a fifth about child rearing, two cooking books, three sports illustrated magazines, and six newspapers.

All of this reading had got him a point in spoken and written English each, as well as two points in finance, one in biology, none in agriculture (he already knew how to do everything in the gardening book), one in teaching, three in psychology, two in culinary skills, and one in law. He'd also improved all around on the physical front, and knew for a fact that he was already more fit than Dudley or any of his toddler friends despite being substantially less healthy than they were. As for his 15 possible skill levels, gained from progressing three levels since his first day "back," he hadn't used any yet—in all honesty, it wasn't like he could do shit while he was four, so he figured he may as well save them until he was older.

About one week before his fourth birthday he woke up to a new screen.

 **Alert!  
Due to the demise of #14, the Game has changed. While management has decided not to terminate based on the actions of one individual, all goals must be completed within the given time slot to avoid the end of the current Earthen civilizations. #14's duties are being parceled out to the other participants based on location, age, and a number of other factors. You have been given the new Goal of improving the educational standards of the main magical school of England [Hogwarts] substantially enough that it would rank in the top ten worldwide if measured against its competitors today.**

 **In order to help with the increased difficulty you are now being offered [Bonus Points] which can be spent in the Advantages/Disadvantages tab to give yourself boosts. Five Bonus Points have been retroactively given to you as a thank you for your participation. Four Bonus Points have been retroactively given to you due to your already completed levels. You will gain an additional bonus point per level, as well as if you achieve anything of note.**

 **Good luck.**

Harry banged his head against the wall. Really #14? Really? You just had to go make it harder for everyone else? Harry was already clueless about how to repair the government of magical Britain, and now this "management" wanted him to repair the school?!

After raging for several minutes Harry calmed himself, paused the game, and turned to the Advantages/Disadvantages tab, and chose the "bonuses" link inside there.

 **BONUSES**

 **[Current Bonus Points: 9]**

 **15 Points: Metamorphmagus (Congratulations. You can now easily change your physical form)**

 **10 Points: Familiar (You can allow an non-sentient animal to become semi-sentient)**

 **15 Points: Animagus (Congratulations. You can now easily change into a predetermined animal)**

 **10 Points: Bare Necessities (Your needs for food, excretion, and sleep are significantly reduced)**

 **5 Points: Athlete (All physical skills get a one-time five point boost)**

 **5 Points: Mage (All magical skills get a one-time four point boost)**

 **5 Points: Scholar (All mental skills get a one-time three point boost)**

 **15 Points: Multilingual (Congratulations. You are automatically at level 50 on all languages)**

 **2 Points: Improved Vision. (No more myopia)**

 **10 Points: Improved Senses. (All of your senses are now more advanced than average)**

 **15 Points: Peverell's Descendent (You can now turn invisible whenever you wish)**

 **2 Points: Improved Transportation (You are able to more successfully use magical transport)**

 **2 Points: Additional Inch (You will grow one inch higher than you would normally)**

 **15 Points: Natural Resistance (You are naturally resistant to some magical potions and poisons)**

 **15 Points: Bullet Dodger (You are slightly less likely to be unlucky)**

…

The list went on and on.

In the end, though, Harry decided not to spend any of the points. He was (almost) four! There was no need yet, particularly because all signs pointed to him being able to get more bonus points at a later date.

It wasn't until his birthday that he got another noteworthy message.

 **New Elective Goal: First Use of Magic. (250 XP)**

 **You're four now. You're motor control is good, your magical core is fairly stable, and you've got some time on your hands. How about using magic for the "first" time?**

Harry grinned and accepted. He'd been waiting years now, and it was finally time.

Honestly the first thing he'd tried when he'd actually calmed down from the whole "you are 'reborn'" thing was try to do magic. Nothing had happened. He'd tried again and again and again and it had taken almost a full week for him to finally remember that accidental magic generally didn't start at birth. Well, apparently his ability to perform magic started at four. Okay, he could work with that.

But what to do?

He sat up from the cot (added to the cupboard only a few months ago) and looked around. Besides his books, the cot, and the cleaning supplies and stored whatevers that had always inhabited the closet, there were also a few choice possessions hidden within the room. He'd stolen some food from the pantry, some cash from Vernon and Petunia, and a few toys from Dudley. While 'playing' was a no-go—he was not, after all, actually a child—he'd remembered trading one of his (Dudley's) army men for a sweet in school his first time around so he figured having some bargaining chips was always helpful. Money wise, he'd managed to steal about 75 pounds from his aunt and uncle over the course of the last few years.

All of his… obtained… goods were stowed in various places about the cupboard, and Harry decided that that was where his first piece of magic would center. A notice-me-not charm, then. He next turned to how to actually do it.

From what he could remember when he was an actual child magic had not been based on words or phrases or wands. It had been based solely on intent. In point of fact, that was one of the skills he had. It was only a six to 'oral magic''s 10, but honestly the better use of his time would be learning how to cast silently. After all, shouting "Ab Aspectu!" in the Dursley household would probably lead to consequences Harry simply did not want to deal with. So instead he turned to his intent. He first grabbed some old yearbooks of Vernon's—unimportant and unused enough that their disappearance wouldn't matter if anything went wrong—and got to work.

Two hours later, and with a pounding headache, Harry admitted defeat (temporarily). He was obviously doing something wrong but he didn't for the life of him know what it was.

Besides, it was a Saturday and the Dursleys were getting up. Any minute now Aunt Petunia would be unlatching the cabinet door and telling him to get a start on breakfast. She'd begun 'teaching' him one or two months prior, and Harry was never happier that some of his skills had transferred back—it would have killed him if he had to deal with Petunia's method of punishment for cooking-related offenses again.

Instead he carefully toed the line between being talented enough to avoid punishment for messing up the food and unknowing enough to avoid punishment for being a freak. He'd only been hit with the frying pan (thankfully on his back rather than his head, and not the one actually on the stove) three times before he finally got it right.

Sure enough it was only a few seconds later than he heard foot falls directly above his head. He groaned, but got up and put on his glasses. He didn't really have 'pajamas' right now—Dudley and he were too ridiculously different sizes for it to work. It took a couple years until he was finally large enough to use Dudley's old clothes, and unfortunately that hadn't happened yet, so he was stuck with three shirts, two pants, four pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, and one pair of too-big shoes, all from a second-hand store that Aunt Petunia had dragged him to several months before.

After a miserable breakfast (crumbs, the parts of the strawberries nearest to the stem, and bread crust from Dudley's breakfast—thankfully with much of the bread leftover, because Dudley hated bread crust too much to risk accidently biting it) Harry got to cleaning. He'd started in the kitchen and worked his way outward, eventually landing in the front yard. He'd started weeding and similar a few weeks ago, when his aunt finally decided that he wouldn't take off whenever he was let outside. (Honestly he'd thought about it, but he was still in the body of a four year old and knew how futile the exercise would be)

 **New Elective Goal: Introduce Yourself (150 XP)**

 **So far all your neighbors have heard about you is solely from your aunt, and it does not paint you in the best light. Can you change that?**

Challenge accepted. Harry glanced about from his position kneeling in Aunt Petunia's flower beds and caught the blur of a head disappearing from sight over Number 5's fence. Perfect.

Harry started crying.

His whimpers gradually got louder, but he made sure to calm them every once in a while—he didn't want to get Aunt Petunia's attention, only Mrs. Creek's. It took about 15 minutes, but it worked.

"Hello, dearie. Why are you crying?"

"I just…" Harry gasped in air, pretending to have trouble speaking. "I just wanted breakfast. I know I'm a waste of space and a freak, I do, but I'm so hungry." He widened his eyes and looked up at Mrs. Creek. "I want to be a good boy, but I'm so hungry."

Harry had never done anything like this the first time around. It hadn't been until years into public school that he realized that first, his aunt and uncle were far from normal in his treatment of him, and second, that by that point it was too late: the idea of him as a delinquent was ingrained into everyone's brains. Well, this time he wouldn't make the same mistakes. This time he'd tell them what he was thinking last time. If nothing else it would leave a trail for the magical police to find later—another path he'd completely missed in his first life.

"Oh, sweetie. They didn't give you breakfast?" Mrs. Creek asked. While it was clear she didn't know whether to trust him, Harry guessed his size difference compared to his cousin was more than a little bit of a factor in her continuing to listen.

"No, they did. I got… I got Dudley's leftovers—the entire crust of his toast and a few bits of strawberries from the green ends! You're right, I shouldn't complain. I'm sorry for taking up your time." Abruptly Harry turned away and began to weed with vigor, murmuring just under his breath, barely loud enough for Mrs. Creek to hear, about needing to be done before Aunt Petunia thought he was slacking. "can't get the frying pan again… need to work harder."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mrs. Creek's heels stand still for a moment, obviously unsure of what to do, before rushing away. Harry sighed and focused even more on the weeding. He'd have better luck next time and he wasn't kidding about worrying about his punishment.

About a minute later, though, he was surprised to hear the clip-clop of Mrs. Creek's heels on the sidewalk again. She came straight up to the flower bed and bent down next to him, careful not to smudge her dress. "Here, my family and I had some leftover cookies from a school bake sale yesterday. Why don't you have them?"

Honestly Harry's first instinct was to scarf them all down in a second, but he stopped himself just in time and thought of how the first Harry would have reacted.

"Really? But… but those are sweets. Freaks like me could never deserve sweets." He made sure to keep his voice matter of fact. It wasn't until he was seven that he'd begun to question it, so at four he would definitely be certain of his 'freakishness' and what that entailed.

"Yes, they're for you. Chocolate chip. Have you had any before? No? Well, I'm sure you'll like them."

Harry tentatively reached out and grabbed one, taking a small bite. He gave Mrs. Creek a small grin, and had to suppress a larger one as he got a notification.

 **Introduce Yourself! Goal Complete. 150 XP Awarded.**

 **New Elective Goal: Next Door Neighbors! (150 XP)  
Convince at least three of your next door neighbors that they were wrong about you. Continuing down this path may lead to your removal from the Dursleys.**

Accept.


	4. Chapter 3

**Levitate! Goal completed. 500 XP Awarded.**

 **New Elective Goal: What Stuff? (250 XP)**

 **Learn how to use the Notice-Me-Not charm.**

Accept.

Over a year. It had taken Harry over a year to learn one spell. Admittedly, it had taken significantly less time for him to use magic for the "first" time—his hands had heated up only a few weeks after his fourth birthday—but it was still incredibly annoying that a spell he'd learned in a few hours when he was eleven had taken most of his fourth year and the beginnings of his fifth this time around. He'd even pumped 15 of his unspecified skill levels into intent magic, and it had still taken all of his effort to get it done as quickly as he had.

That wasn't to say that the year had been a waste, of course—his life had changed drastically over a few short months. It hadn't, as it turned out, taken that much effort to get the government to start looking into his home life, and after god knows how many meetings and a court order Harry had been given Dudley's second room.

Of course, Harry would have vastly preferred being removed from the Dursleys altogether, but after the government started to poke their noses in Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had realized that their actions were not coming across as the epitome of "normalness" to their neighbors and they'd immediately made an about face in how they treated Harry.

He now got three square meals a day, no more than seven "age appropriate" chores a week (enforced via child services), decent if second hand clothes, and a complete end to the mental abuse he'd had to endure the first time around, even if his relatives still couldn't quite bring themselves to actually act nice to him (instead the mostly ignored him when possible.) While it wasn't as good as, say, _not_ living with the Dursleys, it was a hell of a lot better than his prior experiences, so honestly he was cool with it, especially because due to his new freedoms and health he had been able to raise a number of his skills quite a bit more than he ever would have in his past go-round.

What he was less pleased about was the day. It was the 6th of September, and the first day of Year One.

"Dudley-kins! Breakfast is ready!... there's some for you, too, Harry." Petunia called, as if it wasn't obvious—the smell of sizzling bacon had been permeating the house for at least ten minutes now, and it was only Harry's extreme reluctance to go to school which had kept him in bed, focusing on levitating a Lego.

Still, it looked like there wasn't any way he could get out of this, so he shoved the Lego with the rest of his toys in a small bin under his bed and picked up his backpack.

Dudley was headed out of his room at the same time as Harry, and glanced at his cousin for a second, before apparently deciding Harry wasn't worth the effort and turned down the stairs. That had been another welcome change—with child service's interference, Dudley had been finally taught some manners, placed on a diet plan, and made to have an equivalent number of chores as Harry (though Dudley was always given help with completing them.) The end result, once the months of temper tantrums and secret coddling had ended, was a cousin that Harry wouldn't ever be close to, but one he no longer hated. This Dudley—just five years old, and now only the size of a particularly well-fed panda instead of a whale, acted much more like what Harry remembered other five year-olds acting like, even if he was still quite a bit more spoiled than most.

The sound of Dudley's clomping dimmed as he entered the kitchen, and Harry took a deep breath. There was no delaying it anymore. In about an hour he would have to start Year One.

Maybe it won't be that bad, Harry thought as he descended the stairs. Maybe spending hours every day acting like a five year-old with a bunch of other five year-olds won't be… No. This was going to suck. Harry sighed.

The car ride was disturbingly quick, and well before he was ready he was standing directly outside the entrance to St. Grogory's, trying to tune out Aunt Petunia's simpering goodbyes to Dudley. Around him other parents were similarly saying goodbye to their young children, some crying and others putting on a brave face. Harry didn't see what the big deal was—while he and Dudley had gotten out of it with everything that had happened with child services, the rest of the children should have been attending Reception for the past year.

Harry grimaced.

That interpretation wasn't very fair, was it? It wasn't like parents loving their children was a bad thing. It just… it felt wrong, to Harry. He may have twenty two more years of experience since the last time he was in this position, but in the end he hadn't actually gained all that many experiences with him being on the receiving end of parental love. He supposed Mrs. Weasley and Sirius had both fulfilled that requirement occasionally, but there had always been something in the way of him considering them a parent. Besides—his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a middle aged woman standing in front of the school.

"Alright!" Miss Taylor, his former—and present— Year One teacher called out. "I know you all wish this isn't necessary, but it's time to say goodbye. Don't worry, all your children will be returned to you at the end of the day—in one piece, too!"

The parents laughed.

Beside Harry, Aunt Petunia hugged Dudley one more time.

"—and if anything at all goes wrong, don't hesitate to make them call me. I know you're my brave, tough Dudley-kins, and I know you are going to do just wonderfully and show all of the other students exactly how a good, darling boy acts. I love you." She kissed his cheeks as Dudley puffed up with pride, before turning to Harry. "…have a good day, Harry." she ground out, glancing at all of the other parents surrounding him. None of them were paying any attention to her, but then she hadn't been aware that the neighbors had been paying attention last year.

"I will, Aunt Petunia." Harry answered dutifully. Miss Taylor called out again, and he and the other—the actual—children all swarmed after her as she led them into the school.

The classroom was just as Harry remembered it. It was colorful, and almost every bit of furniture in the room was sized for a five year-old. It was, all in all, not a bad place for a five year-old to spend their day. But therein lied the problem. Harry wasn't a five year-old, he just looked like one.

Miss Taylor directed them to sit in a circle on the large map of the world that took up one half of the classroom. Harry sat, but his stomach knotted some more as he did. He had no idea how to pass off as a normal five year old—at least with child services he'd known how he'd acted the last time around, but this time he would be expected to act like a relatively well adjusted child, and he had no idea how to pull it off. He remembered the child rearing book he'd pilfered two years back, but that had mostly focused on toddlers—he was definitely out of that age bracket now. A thought occurred to him then and he quickly he pulled up his **SKILLS**.

 **(Unspecified Skill Levels: 20)**

He really shouldn't have shoved all those points into intent magic, but 20 still wasn't bad. Now, what to put them in…

…

 **SOCIAL**

 **-Teaching: 49 (The ability to teach others)**

 **-Negotiation: 14 (The ability to negotiate to a more pleasant outcome)**

 **-Seduction: 10 (The ability to gain another's attention in an amorous way)**

 **-Intimidation: 0 (The ability to intimidate to get a more pleasant outcome)**

 **-Charisma: 19 (The ability to get people to like you)**

 **-Acting: 48 (The ability to pretend or lie)**

 **-Deception Detection: 21 (The ability to notice other's lies, half-truths, and ulterior motives)**

 **-Speech: 31 (The ability to convince, motivate, and otherwise influence others)**

Reflexively Harry put all 20 points into Acting, then winced. While it would definitely help him in the short term, he'd literally just thought about how he'd have preferred to have not already spent 15 points. Well, at least he'd use the points immediately.

Miss Taylor was speaking, he realized. Talking about the importance of school and year one and how they'd all still have fun. His memories of his first few years of schooling weren't exactly clear—who remembered being five with anything but a blurry haze?—but it all sounded vaguely familiar. School, he did remember, had always been a bit of a salvation for him. While his teachers had never really treated him well—Aunt Petunia's words to them about his behavior in combination with Dudley's constant attempts to get him into trouble had ensured that—it had at least been free of his aunt and uncle, and he'd generally been ignored rather than treated badly by his teachers.

Now Miss Taylor was having them go around and say their names and favorite color. It was Dudley's turn—he'd caught a seat just to the right of Miss Taylor, likely in a bid to suck up to her in the same way as he did his mother.

"My name's Dudley Dursley, and my favorite color is… red! It's the best color."

"Hi Dudley."

Thomas, Adam, Jane, Sara, and Andrew went next, and then it was Harry's turn.

"My name's Harry Potter, and my favorite color is green."

The class, as one, said "Hi Harry," and then the boy to Harry's right—George, apparently—started. Harry let out a breath. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all.

That said, Harry thought as a girl named Nancy tried to decide whether she liked purple or magenta better, it would definitely be boring.


	5. Chapter 4

It was the final day of St. Grogory's. Six years of boredom and exhausting attempts to act his age done (for now.) The years had not been completely useless, however—he was now a full three levels above where most of his age was, and he'd managed to successfully hide his… unique… circumstance from his teachers (that hadn't stopped them from labeling him gifted, however. Thankfully all that seemed to mean was that he was allowed to go to the library instead of staying in the class during the hour-long 'remedial' time the school built in every other day for children who were struggling.)

In terms of skills, Harry was on a roll. He'd (using books in the school library) learned a bit more of French and German (in order to prepare for the Triwizard Tournament), in addition to the smattering of Spanish the class had been taught that he hadn't paid attention to the first time around. The language research had also allowed him to better understand Latin—the dictionaries in particular being useful for this because of their sections on word origins—but there hadn't been any books on the language in particular.

He'd also done what he could to study finance. If he was to change the wizarding government then he really had to have a good understanding of money first, and he'd gone so far as to use some of his stolen cash to buy a book on the topic when his aunt's back was turned in order to be as prepared as possible. Law was another topic he focused on, to the point that in his skill bracket Law split to both Non-Magical and Magical British Law. While there wasn't much he could do about Magical Law, for Non-Magical Law he'd had to mainly rely on one secretly bought book and a fuck-ton of furtive internet searches (his relatives didn't allow him on Dudley's or Uncle Vernon's computer and he didn't want the school to look into what he was looking up.)

He had also gotten significantly better at acting throughout the years. While he'd never exactly been bad at it—pretending everything was alright when he'd first been raised in combination with dumping 20 points into acting on the first day of school had ensured that—his self-study of psychology and communication books helped make sure he could pretend to be who everyone expected him to be. (Not that that made it easier—Harry couldn't wait until he hit his teens and could act more like he actually felt. For now all he could do was pretend to be an unusually introverted and book-smart kid who had no real interest in friends. Jesus, he hoped he didn't end up in Ravenclaw—he remembered them as vicious from his first time through.)

Athletically he'd also improved. While he doubted this would help with his actual goals, considering how frequently he'd been in danger during his first life he figured the ability to dodge, at least, would be ridiculously helpful over the next few years.

What he was most proud of, though, was his magic. While he still couldn't improve on most skills (lacking both a wand and a means to study any of the other magical skills, like runes) he had been able to improve rather noticeably in Intent Magic (47 skill points! Ha!) compared to where he had started. The constant practice also helped him with his charms and transfiguration skills, as well as magic as a whole, which he'd already had a pretty high score in.

There were a smattering of other skills, such as music, that Harry had improved on thanks to paying more attention in school, but he (at the very least currently) couldn't see much use for them.

In addition, as a pat-on-the-back to himself several years prior for learning ten spells (the levitation, notice-me-not, light-creating, summoning, banishing, locking, unlocking, episky, finite, and repairing charms in particular) he'd allowed himself to use two of his bonus points to fix his eyesight. At the very least, he figured, this (in addition to the slightly shorter haircut he now favored) difference would help Snape realize that James wasn't Harry's first name.

Since then he'd also mastered the Gemino charm (which could create temporary copies of almost anything), the Homenum Revelio charm (or at least he thought he did—he had yet to try it with anyone else in the room), the disarming charm (again, probably—he hadn't tested it), the locomotor charm (a sort of summoning-banishing combination charm), muffliato, point me, the shrinking charm, scourgify, the silencing charm, and the stupefy charm (untested, of course.) He thought that the number was pretty great considering he didn't have any teachers or reference material to go off of this time around and he hadn't exactly been a stellar student the first time either.

Best of all, while all of his time spent practicing and studying had ended up giving him a reputation as a loner, unlike last time he never got a reputation as someone to be bullied—he got along with his classmates as a whole, and the few times that Dudley had tried to make a statement by pushing Harry around he was stopped by the teachers who, this time, were at least somewhat aware of Harry's… unpleasant… home life (which was not to say that life with his relative's was necessarily bad. In fact, compared to his first go-through it was downright heavenly, but he knew it still wasn't as good as most children his age, particularly in terms of being loved (something that his psychology textbooks emphasized the importance of.))

Regardless, it was the last day of school, and all of the little children (for despite them being noticeably older than they were when Harry first met them, they were still incredibly young in his now 27 year-old mind) were now being picked up by their various caretakers. The future was upon him.

He was already fairly sure how the rest of the summer would go—this summer's memories, at least, were still relatively fresh in his mind from the first time he'd experienced them. Aunt Petunia would pick them up and treat Dudley to ice cream and soda and whatever else he wanted. Unlike last time, though, this time Harry would likely be allowed along to the steakhouse they'd go to for dinner.

Then they would start the summer holiday. While the first time his day had been mostly spent doing chores or playing with the army men or pet spider (Atticus) in his closet, this time he'd already been given permission by his aunt (for the first time in either lifetime) to sign up for a recently opened Judo class at the local gym. This wasn't because she was being nice, of course, but rather that Dudley had taken an interest in boxing earlier than he had in Harry's last life (Dudley had been forced to exercise by his counselor due to his continued obesity and he'd found boxing to be the most palatable of the options.) Aunt Petunia didn't want to be eyed by her neighbors for only allowing one of the boys to take a class at the gym, so Judo it was. The other good news was that Piers had also signed up for the boxing class, and his mother would be taking him and Dudley back to the Polkiss house after practice, which meant that Aunt Petunia had agreed that Harry could go to the neighboring library to wait to be picked up (which would only happen when Dudley was ready to go home.)

After about two months of this the owl would come (July 24th, if Harry remembered correctly.) Then, depending on whether or not Uncle Vernon found the letter, they'd either have a repeat of last time's letter-bombing fiasco, or Harry would be able to covertly write back a reply with questions that he'd never managed to ask last time, and hopefully a plan to slip out without his relative's notice.

For now, though, he and the rest of the class said goodbye to Mr. O'Brian, their teacher for the year, and got packed up into their parent's (or guardian's) cars.

"I bet—" Dudley started as he buckled his seatbelt. "I bet I've gotten the best scores in the whole grade!" Harry sincerely doubted that. Dudley always had someone working with him during the remedial hour. "In fact, I bet they're gonna give me the highest score ever given!" Harry glanced out the window, saying goodbye to St. Grogory's for (hopefully) the last time.

"I have no doubt, Dudley-kins!" Aunt Petunia hummed, smiling into the rear-view mirror. Harry had no doubt about her conviction, either. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had always told Dudley he was doing remarkably better than he actually was, but to be fair they'd also shelled out a fair bit on tutors so Dudley's idealized image of himself wasn't too far from reality—far, yes, but not ridiculously so. (Harry had no doubt that the other reason that they gave Dudley tutors this time when they hadn't bothered last time was because they could get away with giving Dudley something they didn't have to give Harry—Harry, after all, was preforming well enough on his own.)

"What'll you give me if I get good scores?" Dudley asked, leaning forward. He'd been asking this for weeks now, ever since they'd started studying for the sats, and the answer was always the same.

"Whatever you want, sweetie!" Aunt Petunia crooned happily. Dudley began to list things he was thinking about asking for. Harry had no doubt he'd get them all—most were probably already purchased.

Eventually they pulled into the driveway of Number 4 Privet Drive. Dudley had eventually run out of desired treasures (already having so many toys, gadgets, and thingamajigs that it astounded Harry that there was anything left in the market) and had moved on to what he'd like to eat. It had been decided, by the time they pulled onto the street, that they'd eat at the upper-class steakhouse that had a triple-chocolate fudge cake on its desert menu (Dudley loved it, and the Dursleys tended to eat there once a month in both lifetimes, though in this one Harry was much more likely to be brought along.)

As Aunt Petunia put the car in park she glanced at Harry for the first time in the entire trip. She'd been doing that more often over the past year, and Harry knew it was because she knew his letter was coming soon. While he hadn't ever shown any sign of magic (and what wonders that had done for their treatment of him!) he knew the letter that had been left with him clearly stated that he would go to Hogwarts, and Harry had overheard a non-trivial number of whispered arguments between Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon over what to do about the matter.

They had yet to do anything, but that looked like it was about to change.

"Harry…dear…would you… please… go inside and sit at the kitchen table? I have something to talk to you about."

"What about? Can I watch?" Dudley asked, suddenly interested. While the improvements over the other version of himself couldn't be overstated, he was still a snot of a boy and truly enjoyed seeing others get in trouble.

"No! No, Dudley-kins. It'll be… quite boring, I should think, and I don't want you to have to muddle through it. How about you go up to your room and play that new game that Daddy bought you yesterday? Mummy will be up in a bit to bring you some snacks to tide you over until dinner—I think today's a special enough day that we can ignore your diet." 

"Okay!" Dudley agreed happily, shuffling out of the car and banging up the stairs. He was, after all, only a ten year old boy. It was rather easy to distract him.

Harry nodded at his aunt and picked up his and Dudley's backpacks, depositing them on the floor next to the coat rack just inside the door, before going and taking a seat at the kitchen table. He sat with his back to the door to the outside (locked), and facing the two entrances into the foyer and living room, his paranoia over escape routes and sneak-attacks alike having never gone away after his first life.

Aunt Petunia came in a few seconds later with the mail, which she sat on the counter before gathering Dudley's snacks. Harry said nothing.

Eventually Aunt Petunia came downstairs again and sat directly across from Harry, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Harry said nothing. After a few seconds of tense silence Aunt Petunia began.

"I'm sure you've… wondered… why we haven't signed you up for a secondary school yet," she began. Harry nodded. They had the last time, after all. He still remembered the smell of the dyed clothing. "Yes, well, that's because, well… you see, you're mother didn't die in a car crash." Harry looked appropriately stunned. Aunt Petunia wrung her hands. "You see, the… the _thing_ is, is that there are… are _people_ in this world," she forced the word 'people' out of her mouth her lip curling as she did so, before her expression became taut again. "and they… well, they're…" She stopped suddenly, and took a breath.

It finally occurred to the 27-turned-10 year old that his aunt was doing everything in her power to be polite about magic. Unlike the first time, where she and Uncle Vernon had tried the fear tactic to keep him from it, this time it seemed they had accepted it as inevitable (for all that that had not stopped them from muttering about freakish things throughout the last few years) and were instead trying to keep Harry from resenting them. How…odd. Harry really didn't know how to deal with this—he'd really been expecting to somehow have to hide his acceptance into Hogwarts from them, and he'd already been considering a dozen different (not particularly viable) ways to keep from returning to their house each summer. Oh, it looked like Aunt Petunia was ready to try again.

"I know… I know you've never done anything frea—anything _odd_ in Vernon' and I's presence, but has anything ever happened to you that was, um, unnatural?" She asked.

For the first time in his life (either of them) Harry truly felt sorry for Aunt Petunia. She was obviously trying so hard right now, and even if it had taken the government getting involved for her to treat him properly in the first place, the lesson seemed to stick—she could have, after all, simply waited for the letter to come and then had nothing to do with him (his lack of animosity towards her so far likely insurance enough that he wouldn't turn his magic against her, or she and Uncle Vernon would still be trying to figure out how to keep him away from Hogwarts.) Instead she took the harder route, specifically telling Harry about magic before the letter to give him time to prepare.

"Um… yes, Aunt Petunia." Harry finally responded, racking his brain for an acceptable use of magic. "When… when I was sick with the flu last year I managed to drag my water glass close enough for me to reach without getting out of bed." He remembered doing something similar in his first life, too, and while he had in fact done that last year it hadn't been accidental this time around.

"Yes, that's… that's what I meant." Aunt Petunia sighed and rubbed her arms. "That's magic Harry."

"What?" Harry asked. He was genuinely surprised—given her level of discomfort he thought it would take longer for her to actually say the word.

"Magic… magic is real. It is—I mean—I really don't know much about it, except that my sister was magical, and so was her husband. I… I wasn't particularly close to her—your mother, I mean, so I don't have much more information than that, except… well, there's a school."

"A secondary school?" Harry asked. That was, after all, how the conversation had begun.

"Yes." Aunt Petunia replied shortly, before sighing again and elaborating. "It's… it's called Hogwarts, if I remember correctly. Both of your parents attended since they were eleven and, well, your Uncle and I are pretty sure you will too. An, um, a professor will come… at some point in the summer…" she elaborated. This surprised Harry, because he'd only gotten a letter, but it made sense that muggleborn students would be given a person to explain what magic was about. Harry nodded to show he was still listening, but kept the stunned expression on his face. It wasn't that hard. The fact that this conversation was happening at all was astounding, honestly.

"The professor," Aunt Petunia continued, "will, um, explain some more about… about everything. Um…" Aunt Petunia trailed of, clearly lost on how to continue.

"You said my parents didn't die in a car crash?" Harry prompted after a few seconds. Aunt Petunia flinched, then braced herself and continued.

"Yes, yes. She and her husband—your father… James, I believe, they, well." She stopped again. Harry squirmed and if his aunt were any younger he was sure she would too. Both were rather eager for the conversation to end, for all that it was necessary. "Magic is powerful, Harry." She finally said. "It… it can force people—completely _normal_ people—to… do… things that they don't want to do." She looked distinctly uncomfortable and Harry suddenly wondered if his Aunt's behavior hadn't been fueled primarily by jealousy, as Dumbledore had surmised, but rather by fear and remembrance of a past action or actions done to her. It wasn't a pleasant thought. "And witches and wizards…" she stopped herself again, and her eyebrows knitted together as she thought through what she was going to say. "Witches and wizards like to use magic to do these things—to use their power over others." Harry curled in on himself. Something about her wording rang too true for the young/old boy.

"Your parents… there was a war. I'm not, well, I'm not completely sure what it was about, honestly, but your parents picked a side and… and they got killed in it, by a wizard who was apparently quite dangerous. That's why you came to live with us, actually. Another wizard… Dumbledore, he's the headmaster of Hogwarts, he left you here because, apparently, magic can do something to keep you safe from that wizard and his followers if you live with a blood relative. That's, um, me."

When it became clear that she wasn't going to continue speaking Harry opened his mouth but before he could speak she cut him off. "I—that's enough for today, I think. The professor will come soon, and, um, you can ask your questions to them. I'm… I'm going to…" She stood up, abruptly and turned this way and that, trying to come up with a task that would allow her to flee the conversation, before she muttered something about groceries and left the house entirely.

Harry sat at the kitchen table, stunned.

 **Magic?! Goal completed. (Magic was explained to you for the first time.) 750 XP awarded.**


	6. Chapter 5

Harry was in the bathroom of Little Whinging Public Library. He'd been in there for fifteen minutes already and he was no closer to stopping his panic attack. One thing that the… _Management_ … that had forced him to redo his life hadn't mentioned was that despite his being given "MAX" perception, attention, and memory, he didn't actually know how to use it. Or, more specifically, that didn't mean he did use it.

Several minutes before he had been walking through the fiction section, trying to pass the time as quickly as possible (it was July 24th, and while he, his aunt, and his cousin had left before the mail arrived, he was still relatively certain that today was the day that the letter would come) when he had suddenly realized that he was going to have to go through it all again.

He'd have to go through Quirrell and trolls and dead unicorns.

He'd have to go through the Basilisk and bullying and Dobby.

He'd have to go through the ministry and Sirius (Oh god, Sirius) and dementors.

He'd have to go through the Triwizard tournament and suspicion and kidnappings.

He'd have to go through Umbridge and secrets and horcruxes.

He'd have to go through Voldemort.

He'd have to go through pain.

Harry had rushed to the bathroom and locked himself in the handicapped stall, furthest from the door. He'd paced back and forth, trying to breathe, and upon realizing that no one else was in the bathroom, he'd gone to the sinks and splashed his face with water.

It hadn't helped.

In truth, over the past decade Harry had been doing his absolute best to forget about what was to come. Oh, he'd prepared for his main "goals", sure. Most of his time in the library was spent trying to understand finance and law, and he hadn't exactly ignored what was he knew was coming either: when he had seen the books on French he'd devoted himself to learning it and German because he remembered that they were what the other two schools spoke during the Tournament.

But he hadn't come up with a plan to face Voldemort at the end of that Tournament. Or at the end of any other year, for that matter. Or any of the other threats which had constantly made his life unbearable throughout his Hogwarts years. He had focused on learning, yes, but not on applying that learning. And if he didn't learn how to do that, fast…

Harry rushed to the toilet and puked.

About ten minutes later a red-eyed boy emerged from the men's bathroom at the very back of the Little Whinging Public Library. He walked passed rows and rows of bookcases, never lifting his gaze up from the floor, and pushed the entrance open. He turned left and walked the block to the Polkiss house. He looked up.

Aunt Petunia stood glaring at him—according to his wristwatch, by the time he'd actually left the bathroom he was already five minutes late—but she softened somewhat when she realized he'd been crying.

She frowned, but gestured to the open door of the backseat and Harry climbed in as she herself slid into the front of the automobile.

Nothing was said on the way home—even Dudley was quiet, absorbed as he was in a new Game Boy game that he'd just gotten.

When they finally pulled into the driveway Dudley wasted no time scrambling out of the car—on days that he boxed, Aunt Petunia allowed him to have a few snacks when he came home (against doctor's recommendations), and Dudley was always eager to eat. But both Aunt Petunia and Harry stayed seated.

"Is this… is this because of…" Aunt Petunia started, likely referring to the series of revelations she'd dumped on him two months prior.

"Yes." He lied. Or… was it a lie? Because, after all, it was magic and all of the not-necessarily-good that came with it that had triggered the reaction, so Aunt Petunia's assumption wasn't really that far off the mark.

"I wish… I wish I had more information to give. I'm just…it's not…" Aunt Petunia trailed off again. After the initial talk Harry had tried to ask her some more questions, to flesh out what he could claim to already know, but in the end she hadn't known much. She'd tried to ignore magic for almost as long as she had known it existed, and honestly believed that the entire business was 'freakish' (for all that she tried not to use that word) and therefore forgot most of which she had at one point learned.

Harry, in response to his aunt's words, quietly snorted, imagining Aunt Petunia describing in detail a simple and straightforward way to get rid of Horcruxes. That was the information he needed, not the knowledge of how to enter the wizarding world. But it wasn't information he was going to get. "It's fine, really, Aunt Petunia." Harry said, before quickly blinking away any remaining tears. Crying and wishing on miracle solutions weren't going to stop the future from coming, so he might as well meet it head-on. "I'll get the mail."

His aunt seemed relieved that she could consider the matter closed and went inside without another word. Harry knew that his crying wouldn't be brought up again, and that if she had any say in it magic wouldn't either, but he also knew what day it was and that her wish wouldn't come true.

 _Mr. H. Potter_

 _The bedroom to the left at the top of the stairs._

 _4 Privet Drive._

 _Little Whinging,_

 _Surrey_

It was slotted between a postcard sent from a travel agency and a letter for Vernon from someone Harry didn't know, this time. He didn't remember what else had been in the mail last time. He walked, slowly, into the kitchen, staring at the letter, before looking up at his aunt, who was already puttering about the kitchen in preparation for dinner.

"Aunt Petunia… I think… I think this letter might be from magic people." Harry said. The letter, after all, had not actually been addressed as being from Hogwarts.

His aunt flinched, then looked at the card. "It was nice of them to… send it so normally, but… can you…deal with this yourself? I don't really want to deal with any…"

"Yes Aunt Petunia." Harry easily agreed. It was clear that her tolerance for the unnatural was gone for the day, and honestly he was still surprised she'd tried to help him at all. Besides, it would actually be better if he got to do this himself.

The letter was exactly the same as last time—it was from McGonagall, informed Harry of his place at the school, mentioned awaiting an owl, and had a list of school supplies enclosed.

Harry immediately got out a piece of paper and pen and wrote his reply.

 _Dear Deputy Headmistress McGonagall,_

 _Hello. My name is Harry Potter and I just got a letter for your school. I was expecting it—my aunt told me that my mum and dad were magical—but it didn't really include where to buy school supplies or anything, and my aunt doesn't remember. Honestly, I'm not sure how I'll get this to you, but it says that you await my owl, so I think I'm just going to go look for an owl and see what happens._

 _Anyway, could you send someone to explain things to me? My aunt Petunia was pretty sure someone had come and explained things to my mother—her name was Lily Evans before she got married, if that helps. My dad's name was James._

 _Thank you,_

 _Harry Potter._

As written, Harry immediately sealed the letter into an envelope and marched outside. There were no owls in his front or backyard, but as it turned out there was one in Mrs. Figg's (a batty old lady in either lifetime, who clearly did not have the energy to keep an eye on him: Harry still wasn't particularly happy that she had been put in charge of monitoring his wellbeing when she so clearly needed someone to manage her own.) Harry looked around, but the woman wasn't anywhere in sight, so he just hopped the fence to get to the owl.

It was a Little Owl, as it turned out, and it stared directly at Harry as he neared.

"Hi. Could you take this to Prof—I mean Deputy Headmistress McGonagall, please?" Harry held out the letter, and waited for the owl to bob its head and snatch the envelope out of his hands. Less than five minutes after he'd first picked up the letter and he was already back in his room, having done all he could with it.

How… anticlimactic.

Still, it did give him more time to prepare. Harry grabbed a jotter from his desk and began to write.

 _TO DO:_

-Actually know my own finances

-Figure out why I had to live here

-Get more books from magical bookstores

-Deal with insane popularity (somehow)

-Do well in class

-Somehow get Snape to teach better

-Get Quirrell caught out

-Figure out how I killed Quirrell the first time around

-Don't let the troll endanger anyone

-Stand up to bullying

-Keep the stone from being destroyed and return it to Nicholas Flamel

-Keep Ginny from being possessed

-Destroy Horcruxes

-Save Dobby

-Expose and deal with death eaters

-Kill the Basilisk

-Get Hagrid exonerated

-Expose Lockhart

-Keep Dementors away from the school

-Prove Sirius's innocence

-Expose Pettigrew

-Keep Remus from being exposed

-Get out of the Triwizard Tournament

-If forced to participate, prove that I was forced

-Expose the Crouches

-Keep the press truthful

-Deal with Delores Umbridge

-Learn Occlumency

-Kill off Voldemort for good

Finished, Harry quickly glanced over the list. He was sure he missed some things, but it would do for now. Assured that nothing blatantly obvious had been forgotten, Harry tore up the list. Not only did he have an eidetic memory (which, admittedly, he still wasn't making very good use of) but he had also gotten at least one new goal each time he'd written something down on the list. Combined with the ones he'd had before, he now had 37 current goals. Now to just figure out how to start…

"Dinner!" Aunt Petunia called upstairs. Harry tossed the shredded paper into the bin beneath his desk and stood up. He could keep on hashing out a plan later—he was starved.


	7. Chapter 6

Someone rapped on the door. He would have called it knocking, but knocking implied… some measure of uncertainty, almost? Harry could tell that whoever it was knew that they'd be invited inside.

At the moment Harry and the Dursleys were eating breakfast. Eggs and pancakes weren't a full English layout, but they were still good, and Harry didn't particularly want to abandon the meal.

"Go get the door, Dudley."

"Make Harry do it! He's almost done, anyway."

Harry was not almost done. His portion just happened to be four times smaller than Dudley's, and that was with his cousin's significant change in diet in this lifetime.

"Get the door, Harry."

Harry sighed and got up. The government stepping in may have stopped any actual abuse from taking place, but he was still the unwanted nephew. Dudley was allowed to backchat—not him.

Before opening the door Harry risked a peek through the peephole. He blanched, paused, and moved to pull the door open, before pausing again and pulling up his **Bonuses** list. This was why he should have thought things through sooner—he'd just have to hope that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon wouldn't notice the difference.

 **Do you wish to spend 15 POINTS on the METAMORPHAGUS skill?**

Yes.

 **You have now spent 15 POINTS on the METAMORPHAGUS skill. Through an effort of will, you can now change your appearance. While what you are capable of will grow with practice, you are currently restricted to changing your dead skin and epidermis layer.**

Harry closed his eyes and willed his scar to disappear. Then he pulled open the door—there was no time for him to check if it had worked.

"May I come in?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Yes ma'am." Harry stepped aside, letting her in, and reminded himself that he had an 84 in acting. He could do this. "Um… who are you?"

"I am Professor McGonagall, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry," She stated, "and you…" she smiled, here, and Harry suddenly remembered that his parents too had been her students, and that she had been quite fond of them. The smile was nice, and reminded him of the all she had done for him in his past life. "You are Harry Potter, are you not?"

A few minutes later Harry himself, his aunt and uncle, and his future Head of House were all gathered in the living room. Aunt Petunia had served tea.

"So, in effect, Mr. Potter has been told nothing of his heritage?" Professor McGonagall questioned.

Aunt Petunia nodded. "It's not like I tried to remember much. It's… I'm not comfortable with it, not in my house. I won't stop him from learning it—I know that's useless—but I'm… I'm not your kind, and I do not want to be a part of your world."

Professor McGonagall sighed. She seemed resigned—Harry assumed that his relatives weren't the first to turn their backs on magic, and no matter what he did he knew they wouldn't be the last. It was something to think about for his future reform efforts.

"I understand. I will not force you to interact with something you do not feel comfortable with, and as you have neither broken the statute of secrecy nor treated Harry badly over the past decade, I will leave it there. From what I can tell, the wards are still in place, so you should be safe from… the rest of 'our kind'."

 _What wards?_ Harry wondered. He still couldn't tell that they were there—if it did exist, it was not considered an advantage by his Gamer gift, which left him wondering what exactly the ward accomplished—he had no real way of testing it, and while he'd never been found while living in Little Whinging, he was also out of the house for hours at a time; it was hard to believe that if anyone was really looking they wouldn't have found him while he was at school or something.

Professor McGonagall thanked Aunt Petunia, who fled the room with Uncle Vernon immediately behind her. Harry had no doubt they were happy to be done with talking to a 'freak', and didn't begrudge them as much as he would've in the past—in this lifetime, at least, they'd shown that they could try if they were given a big enough push.

"Mr. Potter."

"Yes ma'am?"

"If you permit, I could take you to Diagon Alley—that is the 'main street' of Magical Britain—now, to pick up your school supplies and allow you to take in the magical world. I am only willing to do this immediately because it is clear you already have a cursory understanding of what magic is, and I can give you the pamphlets I have for muggleborns—witches or wizards who are born to nonmagical parents, like your mother—when we get back, for you to peruse at your leisure, but I have sufficient time to take you to the Alley now."

"Umm… sure." Harry said. "Just, let me get my backpack." He shifted, about to stand, but before he could Professor McGonagall spoke again.

"First, though… I think I must tell you a bit about yourself and your parents." What followed was a severely whitewashed version of the First Voldemort War (not that she told him that, or called it that) which, while more detailed than Hagrid's had originally been, still left a lot out. It did, however, force her to admit that he was considered a hero.

"What? Why?" Harry said. Honestly, even after over one and a half lifetimes (considering he only lived to 17 in his first, and he was already almost 11 in his second), he still didn't understand why the wizarding world treated him like a celebrity. Every time he'd asked he was just told some version of how people wanted a hero.

"The war was a terrible tragedy, Harry, and when people found that it was over they wanted someone to thank. And that was you." See?

"But why? Why not my mother? My father? I mean, I was one—I don't care how powerful magic is, there's no way that I did anything against a supervillain like Voldemort!"

Professor McGonagall sucked in a breath at Riddle's self-styled name. While she'd said it earlier, she had clearly been reluctant, and she now seemed to regret saying it at all. "Don't say his name like that! Names have power, you know." She sighed, then, and seemed to focus on the rest of his question. "I… the… the reason that it was you, Harry, that people turned to, it is… complicated. When you are a bit older—a bit more mature—I'll… try to explain it to you. But for now, please accept that that is the way things are." 

Harry wanted to grimace, but managed to control his expression. One of the things he had grown to loathe in his past life was when he was told to ignore something, to not question it, to just _accept_ it—of course nothing could be done to improve his home life, of course the Philosopher's stone was safe, of course Snape was a good guy, of course, of course, of course.

Harry was sure some of those things were true—he was told in school to just accept that vegetables made him healthier, and sure enough, a bit of research had proved that true—but he always wanted the ability to question, the ability to ask "are you sure?" because while the nonmagical world had peer review to validate findings, and journalists to uncover lies, and innovators to improve upon what is already known, the magical world seemed to lack many of those same resources, and what few they had were more interested in personal fame and gossip-mongering than the truth.

Still, he nodded.

And tacked journalism and science onto his to-do list.

 **-Journalistic Integrity—Improve magical journalism's truthfulness and reach (1,750 XP)**

 **-Improve, Improve, Improve—Help promote scientific innovation in the magical world (1,750 XP)**

"Alright, then. Now, before we go I should give you a brief description of what you should prepare yourself for…"

Diagon Alley was as busy as he remembered it. It was not yet noon, and a Thursday, but the street was packed—they'd skipped the Leaky Cauldron, instead apparating immediately to a small nook of the alley obviously set aside for just that. After he got over his nausea he took a closer look at the alley, trying to see if anything had changed. When he'd gone upstairs to grab his backpack just before they left he'd noticed his blank summer assignment about the current impact of the technological revolution and for the first time realized that he could already see the effects of some of the other time travelers (the much more common computers, for instance, as well as a much larger environmental movement than he remembered and some sort of political debate going on in the middle east that he didn't remember happening at all.) While he hadn't had much time to document the changes—not that he'd spent long in the nonmagical world the first time anyway—he was still curious if any of the differences had carried over to the magical world. Unfortunately, though, no difference was readily apparent.

"Has the nausea subsided, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Then let's make our way to the bank, shall we?"

Well, it was large. And looming. And the guards were terrifying. And the message was foreboding. So Gringotts seemed the same too. Harry gulped, and reminded himself that even if a goblin was one of the time travelers they (probably) had no reason to call for his death—yeah, he'd caused _a lot_ of property damage the first go-round, but forgive and forget… right?

The goblin closest to him glared, and Harry flinched.

"Face forward, Mr. Potter. The goblins are an honorable people, and bound by treaty regardless, so so long as you don't try to steal anything you have nothing to worry about."

Yeah, that made him feel _much_ better. It wasn't like he'd already stolen from them or anything. He gulped again and then did as he was told, carefully not looking around until they were finally able to talk to a teller. The good news was that the metamorphagus skill seemed to be working—he'd checked at home and hadn't been able to spot his scar, and while he'd gotten more than a few looks here after they all saw his clear forehead they'd moved on.

"State your business."

"A withdrawal from Vault 687."

"That's the Potter vault."

"Yes, and this is Mr. Potter. Here's his key."

Harry stared at it as it passed from Professor McGonagall to the Goblin—Ironclaw, this time. He turned to Professor McGonagall and quietly asked, "does everyone have access to my vault?"

She glanced at him, surprised, but answered while Ironclaw verified the key. "No, Mr. Potter. I was given the key by your guardian, Albus Dumbledore."

"The headmaster?" Harry asked.

"Yes—" The professor started, but before she could continue Ironclaw ordered them to follow him (or her—Harry had only ever assumed that the goblins he met were male, but as he'd never met one he'd categorized as female it was entirely possible that they just looked the same to him regardless of gender.) Instead Professor McGonagall began to explain the denominations of magical currency.

The cart ride was… Harry didn't like uncontrolled transportation, okay? It was literally one of his disadvantages. Still, it was far better than apparition, portkeys, or the flue, and he certainly enjoyed it more than Hagrid had, so he had little to complain about.

It was when he came to his vault that he spotted the first difference. Well, not really. On the surface nothing had changed: stacks upon stacks of gold, silver, and bronze in a chamber more spacious than even Dudley's bedroom. But unlike the first time he had gone into the vault, or any of the others, this time he actually took stock of what that meant.

He was rich.

This was not a new revelation in and of itself, but its consequences were hitting Harry for the first time. There were precious few things in the world which were considered equivalent in metaphors with power: knowledge, yes, but also money. Thanks to "management" he had one and a half lifetimes of the first, and now it turned out that he had always had plenty of the second.

"How much… how much is this?" Harry asked, looking as star struck as he felt.

"This, Mr. Potter, is quite enough to live with into your hundreds… if you are careful. If you spend wastefully, however, you will find that it will quickly disappear." McGonagall responded, before muttering under her breath, "there's a reason your grandfather kept your dad's hands off the account for as long as he could."

Harry caught the comment, but ignored it for now. He was obviously not meant to have heard it.

"How much do you think I should take out now? Not just for school supplies, I mean! But if I could get some other magical things, well… I'm going to work when I'm grown up anyway, right? I don't have to save everything?"

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, frowning, before pausing. "I… suppose a bit of a spending spree wouldn't be out of the question. Merlin knows your father would have spoiled you rotten anyhow. Take… 400 Galleons, I think. And a few Sickles and Knuts. Your school supplies should be about 200 Galleons, all told—it's always more expensive the first year, because of costs like your wand—and you can spend the rest as you wish."

As Harry piled the Galleons into a bag that had been handed into him. While it didn't have a extension charm placed on it, it definitely had a featherweight one, so in the end he had no trouble holding the entire amount. As he loaded the bag, though, he decided that he wouldn't get a better time to ask some questions.

"My dad would've spoiled me?"

Professor McGonagall gave a sigh which began exasperated and ended wistful. "Yes. Your father—James Potter—was a... a good man, who had many good qualities. But he was also quite a wealthy man, and while your mother would have tried to keep you more grounded I'm sure he would've slipped you presents and gifts at every opportunity." Clearly without meaning to, she laughed, then continued, "Your mother was a different charm altogether. She was a headstrong woman, you know. From her first year she knew what she wanted and she knew how to get there. She would have made sure that you were an upstanding citizen, while your father, well, he would—" she laughed again. "He would make sure you knew how to have fun."

Without seemingly meaning to she began to describe her former student in more and more detail, at first in abstract terms that Harry had heard before, but then with more and more actual memories.

"Oh! And I remember when James—oh, he must've just been a second year then, so small. Well, I remember when he and his friends—the 'marauders' they called themselves, as if they were the first to pull pranks at Hogwarts—well, they got it into their heads that if they flooded—flooded!—my classroom, then I wouldn't be able to teach. Well, let me tell you, they were surprised as hell when we just moved two classrooms down. It didn't even take more than 10 minutes for the classroom to be completely dried—I just moved the class to try to deter them from doing it again. Not that that worked, mind you—ahem." Professor McGonagall paused, finally realizing who she was describing things to. Harry was more than a little disappointed—the past five minutes were the most he'd ever heard about his father—but he was sure that with a little time and effort he could get her off on a tangent again. It hadn't exactly taken much the first time.

Professor McGonagall clapped her hands twice, taking in the full bag. "Time to see the rest of Diagon Alley, I believe. We'll start with Madam Malkins." She turned smartly to the door, acting for all the world as if she had not just begun to reminisce in such detail that she'd literally forgotten her surroundings. But as they left the vault she did make sure to get one last comment in. "If I ever see you do anything like what your father did… I'll know you're your fathers son. The first time. Don't try for a second."


	8. Chapter 7

The problem with his "take two" at life, Harry decided as he and Professor McGonagall left Gringotts, was that at the end of the day it wasn't that useful. Compared to the games that Dudley (and himself, to some extent) played, at the end of the day the majority of his "tool" could just be described as constant testing. While Hermione may have been happy to have received that, Harry… wasn't as thrilled. It was nice, sure, to know that he had an "84" in acting, but he didn't even know what that was out of! (He severely doubted it was a percentage, considering he was already at 90 in magic and he knew that he was nowhere near as good as, say, Dumbledore.)

The bonuses were significantly more helpful, but they were also significantly harder to get. He'd already spent most of his hard earned points, and given how rarely he earned more it wasn't as if he was going to get a chance in the near future to get another advantage.

On top of that, he had been brought back ALONE.

Oh yeah, _sure_ , there were 26 (woops—25 now) other people who'd kept their memories, but there were also BILLIONS of people in the earth, and assuming they'd all been given giant goals like he had—which was likely, when you took into account the huge technology surge which had been fast-forwarded a few years by _someone_ , not to mention the political and environmental changes—they weren't very likely to be within the near vicinity of each other.

Then again, he had been tasked with revamping Magical Europe's education after another… gamer?... had quit or got hit with a bus or something, and, given what he knew of the magical world, it was really unlikely that a muggle would've been given that task, and there weren't all that many magical people comparatively, so maybe he could run into one of the others, assuming that there were a couple working almost exclusively on the magical side of things.

But even then, even if there was some chance he'd meet other world-changers in the future, he certainly wasn't meeting them now.

Which was… lonely, honestly. In all of the years of his repeat he had yet to meet anyone he was actually friends with—acquaintances he had by the bucketful, but friends? People he could actually rely on?

He had, of course, considered tracking down some of his former friends—Hermione especially—but… well, it would be kind of pointless, wouldn't it? _This_ Hermione was not the Hermione he remembered. She wasn't his mental age, for one, and for another she'd literally grown up in a different world. That didn't stop him from wishing he could, though. Hermione had always been his brain. He'd like to say he could think for himself, and to a large extent that was true, but he knew that if his IQ had been one of the skills his "tool" had measured it would be average, at best.

And right now? Right now he needed to be a fuck ton better than "average."

…But it wasn't like he had a choice, right? This was literally do or die, and out of all the possible bonuses not one actually directly increased his intelligence, just his knowledge or senses or even height.

So maybe that was worse then being alone. It didn't really feel like it, though. Knowing that he was on his way to meeting all of his friends' doppelgangers, so similar yet so different from the people he remembered, and that he would never be able to re-forge those connections without them being fundamentally altered from what they once were…

It killed him.

It killed him.

So yeah, given the amount on his plate maybe his average-at-best intelligence was his largest unchangeable hindrance. But he was lonely, unfathomably lonely, and he found himself crying himself to sleep more than he would ever admit in either life, so it was that particular obstacle that he found himself thinking about the most.

What would Hermione be like? He remembered being 11, but those memories were dulled, less emotion-filled than when he was experiencing them in person, and less clear because his perception was certainly far below "MAX" in his first life. Would her behavior have been changed by the differences in this timeline? How about Ron's? He hadn't noticed any major differences in the magical world, but that didn't mean there weren't any. Would this Ron not root for the Chudley Cannons like his Ron did, but rather for the Appleby Arrows?

He wouldn't able to make friends in Hogwarts as he had when he was 11, he knew that already, but would he be able to be friendly with them? He could—and would—act, of course, but there was only so much you could fake constantly and consistently. He may not actually be a genius, but to some extent he would be unable to hide his "genius" actions, being completely unwilling to work on homework for hours instead of the 40-50 minutes—max—it would take him this go-round.

Would Hermione resent him for that? How about Ron? Hermione had always defined herself by how well she did in comparison to others, particularly at 11, and he knew that Ron had never really gotten over doing the most poorly in school out of their little trio, so would that remain even if they weren't in any kind of direct competition? Would they give him the cold shoulder, and treat him as they had the Ravenclaws which had thumbed their noses at the "Golden Trio" in turn?

And not having Hermione and Ron as friends changed far more than his day to day at school.

He doubted that he'd have the Weasleys as family, this time. That had originally started because Ron was his best friend and, aware of his poor home life, had done all he could to invite Harry into his family. Neither of those factors really held true, this time.

The more he thought about it the more his entire life broke down.

Everything he could possibly look forward to—the friends and family he'd gathered over time in his last life—would never be the same people as they had been then, and treating them like they were would be like treating Padma and Parvati Patil as the same person (and hadn't that gone marvelously, the first time?)

He wanted friends. It was lonely, being alone. And he knew it'd get worse as he continued to run into people he'd known before.

He'd been able to hold out through shopping with Professor McGonagall, so far. She hadn't yet realized that he was unusually quiet—but then, she didn't really know him that well, and it hadn't actually been all that long, and he was still responsive to the world around him (thanks to his maxed attention and perception), so maybe whatever distraction did leak through she simply attributed to him being eleven and clothes shopping being fun for no-one (he refused to believe that any man or woman, even Lavender, could actually enjoy this.)

He knew, on some level, that he should tune back into reality more fully. Even if his eidetic memory would keep anything important from slipping his mind—theoretically, at least—stewing in negativity wasn't great, according to the psychological texts he'd gotten his hand on.

He tried to pay attention as Madam Malkin simpered to him about what a wonderful lad he was, standing so still, and immediately zoned out again.

He was allowed to be miserable. He'd still try to accomplish his goal, of course—he'd prefer it if everything and everyone he'd ever known didn't vanish from existence—but no one said he'd have to be happy go lucky while he did it.

…That felt a bit too whiny.

It wasn't like he was going to sink into a depression (at least, he didn't think he would.) He was, somewhat, able to notice and genuinely feel happy about the good things that were happening—a significantly better home and school life, Professor McGonagall being far more actively interested in him then he remembered her being, actually getting a second chance at all…

But at the end of the day the things that weren't going so well were never going to go well. There wasn't, to his knowledge, any way of vastly increasing one's intelligence—there was the wit-sharpening potion, but there was also the extreme negative effects of taking it. There also wasn't any real way for him, with the mind of an adult, to have any sort of fulfilling social life with only pre-teens.

Of course, he could—his thought process paused as Professor McGonagall led him back into the alley, now talking about getting him a trunk—he could simply tell people. Tell them about how he had been sent back in time, and management's goals, and the burden that had been placed on him. But, as far as he could figure, that only had two possible outcomes: they'd either think he was crazy, and toss him in the loony-bin, or they'd think he was telling the truth, and lock him in some government testing center (probably, in all likelihood, with the Unspeakables.) Not to mention, as far as he could tell none of the other travelers had said anything either, and given the already blatant changes he could assume a number of them to be adults. So he'd stay quiet, like they were. Too risky, really.

Harry grimaced. In front of him Professor McGonagall didn't notice, instead talking to the owner of the trunk store about adding a minor security mechanism to the standard school trunks—apparently theft had always been somewhat of a problem, but because actually adding magically-defensible locks to the trunk meant admitting that, officially Hogwarts didn't recommend it and it was cheaper without.

Harry didn't remember being stolen from, but he did know that that was certainly a problem Luna had to deal with, and he also remembered how easy it had been to get into Fluffy's room, so he was with Professor McGonagall—the school had to care about the "image" of using actually useful locks a lot less and care about the safety of the students a lot more.

That was certainly something to think about, in the long term—based on his memories and what few interactions he'd had in the magical world since he'd come back, image was everything in the magical world, even more so than in its muggle counterpart. He himself had personally felt the effects of mudslinging, and he wasn't eager to repeat the experience, so he'd have to start considering how to deal with the news industry as soon as possible.

Actually, there was probably a couple of books on the Daily Prophet. He'd have to make sure to check them out when they actually got to Flourish and Blotts.

He was actually looking forward to going to Flourish and Blotts. Hermione, his Hermione, would have been so happy.

He wondered if this one, too, would also be happy, even if it was just to know that there was another, apparent, bibliophile attending the school. That was a better outcome than her being jealous. Should he introduce himself to her? Something to think about closer to the train ride, to be sure.

Harry coughed. He and Professor McGonagall had just entered an apothecary's shop. This one didn't look like the one he'd went to with Hagrid—it seemed to have less variety but larger amounts. Harry guessed that the other one was more geared towards specialists—this one, on the other hand, seemed more generic, with large print labels on everything and pre-measured containers. There was also a giant stack of "Hogwarts X-Year Kits" in the middle. Professor McGonagall had already nabbed a first year one, but asked him if he thought he'd be interested in potions. Harry shrugged and said that he liked chemistry, so probably. Professor McGonagall bought a "bonus first year" kit too.

Harry, in the meantime, opened his current goals list. It was… long. The most immediate one was **Bookworm** ,or a more varied magical book selection,which he'd deal with at Flourish and Blotts. That one would actually feed into a couple more of what he had to do—he could figure out some more about his fame ( **Fickle Fame** ), by buying books about himself (and didn't that make him feel egotistic.) He didn't think it would be much of a help in figuring out why he was a **Dursley Resident** , but he could buy some books on the magical economy to accomplish the **Personal Finance** goal, which hadn't been completed with the visit to Gringotts, as well as some books on magical law, particularly on exoneration and the justice system in general, for **Long Overdue, An Innocent Man, Wriggling Wormtail, Unctuous Umbridge,** and **Crouch, Crouch** , (wow, he was going to be spending a lot of time with the legal system) and some books on journalism for **Lying Lockhart, Libel and Slander, and Journalistic Integrity**. What else…

Books on language for **Speak to Me** was a must. For all he knew there was a magical way to learn language, which would be incredibly convenient. Books on **occlumency,** if there were any, was also very necessary, but he remembered some comments from Dumbledore and Snape both implying that they might be restricted. In order to prepare for Hogwarts in general, as well as **Professional Standards** , he was basically required to purchase Hogwarts, A History (Hermione would have been so happy.) He should also try to find any book on magical science (if there were any) for **Improve, Improve, Improve**.

Finally, any book whatsoever on magic was high on his list. Magic was, amazingly enough, an integral part of the Magical World, and the more he knew about it the better, not only for accomplishing his entire-world-is-dependent-on-me goals, but also to get rid of Voldemort so that he'd even have a chance of completing them.

And the entire time he did all this he had to keep Professor McGonagall from being suspicious.

Suspicious of what though? He paused, considering, and decided that the only thing he was truly worried about was Professor McGonagall assuming he was dark, or dark-inclined, or effected by Voldemort's so-called "curse-scar" in any way.

In the short term, none of the books that he wanted to buy would give her that impression.

So really, all he had to worry about was actually being allowed to buy as many books as he wanted to (a very different problem then he'd ever had in his first life, and one that he suddenly found himself excited to face—the idea of getting the stern and usually uncompromising Professor McGonagall to cave to his begging was, in all honesty, quite a pleasant thought.)

"And now, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said, leading him out of an enchantments shop which sold the telescope he needed, "all we have left is your wand and the bookstore." She glanced at him. "Wand first, I think. You've been eying Flourish and Blotts since we've arrived and if you're anything like your mother you'll have to be bribed out of the store, so its best to get the rest of the shopping done first." Harry smiled, nodding and trying not to show how much his plans had mimicked her own worries, and she turned and moved towards Ollivander's, saying offhandedly as she did, "it'll be nice to know what your wand is too. They say a lot about you, you know."

Harry grimaced, remembering Ollivander's comments in his first lifetime. He was suddenly in a significantly less pleasant mood—and after all the effort it had taken to get him into one in the first place!


	9. Chapter 8

Ollivander's was as musty and dusty as Harry remembered. Wand boxes still lined the sides of the room, and the measuring tape was just as annoying. The change began when Harry started trying wands.

"Nope!" Ollivander said, snatching back another wand which had done… absolutely nothing. Ollivander didn't seem surprised, or worried, but it was extremely worrying for Harry. "Nope!" That one had been cherry wood. Harry quite liked the look of cherry wood. Still no reaction though.

"Hmm…I wonder…" Ollivander said. And then, just as last time, Ollivander brought out the Holly and Phoenix. And unlike last time… "Nope!"

"Mr. Potter," Ollivander finally asked, after the thirty fourth wand, "can you already perform some spells?"

Harry glanced at Professor McGonagall, who had been becoming as worried as Harry after wand after wand showed no reaction, but now seemed as curious as Ollivander.

"Erm… kind of?" Now they looked even more curious. "I mean, I wasn't, like, saying stuff like Professor McGonagall did when she teleported us to the Alley, but… I'd sometimes, um, do stuff?" More staring. "On purpose?"

"Like what, lad?" Ollivander asked.

Harry thought back. "Let's see… I can move stuff an way I want, I can hide my things from my cousin, I can make my finger light up like E.T., I can lock and unlock my door without touching it, I can heal papercuts, um… I fixed a broken pencil once? Oh! I also got one piece of paper to turn into two, but the second one disappeared after a bit… I can also figure out where things I lost are, and I can make things smaller, and I cleaned the bathtub once without using anything, and… um… I think that's it?" Harry knew he hadn't mentioned all he had learned to do—like hell he would tell them that he knew how to stun people—but hopefully that list was sufficient enough to explain whatever was happening with the wands and, hopefully, get him labelled a genius. He remembered well enough from the first time around the benefits that got Hermione—time turner, anyone?

"Well!" Ollivander said, obviously impressed. "That's quite a list!" Professor McGonagall looked similarly stunned. "Alright, then. Let's go about this a different way." In a flurry of movement Ollivander had spelled all of the previously tried wands to go back to their previous locations. He then opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a… thing. It was vaguely wooden, or at least it seemed to be, and Harry was fairly sure it had a shape, for all that he had no idea what it was… it kind of looked like the "impossible trident" that they'd gone over in art class one day, but it was also… moving?

"This, young Mr. Potter, is a wood lelifer, which will help match you with your ideal wand wood. As you can see, the cylinder I touched has become hornbeam wood, which is what my wand is made of. It's not ideal, mind you—there's a reason that I generally use trial and error to choose a wand, on top of which if you currently have a wand bonded to you it will only show that wood—but it does come in useful on occasion, as in this case." Harry nodded to show that he understood, but honestly trying to figure out what parts of the "lelifer" actually existed was taking up most of his attention. Was this what surrealists were constantly imagining? "Alright then, if you would just place your hand on one of the cylinders…"

Harry tentatively grabbed one. Under his hand he felt the wood—for it was definitely wood—shift, and grains of all colors formed, almost solidifying that particular part of the 'lelifer' more in reality.

"Ah! A good selection, I should think." Ollivander said. He released the cylinder he had been holding and bent over, his nose barely a hairsbreadth away from Harry's hand as he inspected the grains. "Hmm… Ah-ha!" Ollivander dashed to a section of the wall, barely glancing at the stacks for a second before pulling out one, two, three wands. He then dashed to another part of the store and added four more to the pile, before returning to Harry and taking back the lelifer. (Honestly Harry was relieved—it might have been fascinating, but he was also getting a headache trying to understand it.)

"Now, Mr. Potter, if you would, please place your hand over each of these one at a time and cast the levitation charm—I'm sorry, that would mean to make the wand float. Don't touch the wands, however."

Harry shrugged and put his hand over the first wand but, to his surprise, it didn't move. "Umm… why isn't it working?"

"Hmm?" Ollivander said. "Oh, wands are naturally resistant to un-wanded magic. Only those that are naturally attuned to you will move at all."

Harry nodded, still perplexed (why? Actually, why for everything in this shop. None of it made any sense!) and moved to the second wand. The third was the first to have a reaction, but it wasn't big enough for Ollivander, so he moved to the fourth and then the fifth.

It was the sixth that finally really reacted. "Ouch!" Harry shouted as the wand slammed into his hand. It dropped to the floor as Harry rapidly flapped his hand, trying to get rid of the stinging in his palm.

"And there you are!" Ollivander said as he picked up the wand. (In the background McGonagall sighed, relieved.) It was white, and about as long as his previous had been. "11 ½ inches, and reasonably supple. Your wand is Aspen, with a phoenix feather core—donated from Sparky, that would be the New Zealand Moutohora Macaws mascot, just two years ago. He quite likes donating feathers, you know."

"Umm… no, I didn't know that." Harry said as he tentatively took back the wand.

"I do like a good Aspen wand," Ollivander said, moving to his desk to ring them up. "It's owners tend to be accomplished duelists, with a strong, determined mind to back up quite a bit of natural power. Quite revolutionary, too—did you know that the magical Scandinavian revolution was started with not one, not two, but three separate owners of Aspen wands simultaneously? I've always felt that the owner of an Aspen knows when it's time for a change."

"Oh." Harry said. "Cool." That was… interesting information, actually. On the whole, the rest of his wand hadn't changed much—still pretty flexible, still about 11 inches, still with a phoenix core (and this one, thankfully, did not come with any implications), but the wood was a pretty big shift. While Ollivander hadn't talked much about his wand wood the first time (Fawkes' contribution being by far more interesting), after Ron had gotten a new wand and explained some of the lore surrounding it Harry had taken it upon himself to learn more about his own focus.

Holly wands, he had found, were apparently meant for those on quests, which would work well in either life, but it was also typically paired with someone who was quick to anger. Honestly it should have been less of a surprise to him that the wand was different this time around—by 17 in his previous life he'd actually learned quite a bit about controlling himself, and in this one his emotional control, particularly in regards to rage, had significantly improved. He was sad more, sure, and anxious a lot as well, but he was very rarely outright angry.

"Well, Mr. Potter, now that we, finally, have your wand sorted out, let's adjourn to Flourish and Blotts." Professor McGonagall nodded amicably at Ollivander and led Harry out of the store.

To the complete and utter shock of Harry, Flourish and Blotts was… utterly the same. If he didn't know better, he'd even say the dust mites were in the same place. That said, his actual experience in the store was noticeably different. True to her word, after ensuring he had purchased the necessary texts, Professor McGonagall had moved to talk to one of the clerks, leaving Harry to his own devices.

Initially eager to take full advantage of the respite and buy as many books as possible, Harry soon found himself disappointed. He'd snapped up some books on himself fairly quickly (three nonfiction texts which looked fairly respectable, and another three fiction books—one from each author who was publishing stories about him), before searching for a book on economics. But there weren't any. In fact, there wasn't even a section on money of any sort at all. Thankfully, there was a section on magical law, but—amazingly—magical British law was apparently even longer than the muggle kind: there were exactly fourteen labels spread throughout the seven rows devoted to it that informed any browsers, again and again, that "WE DO NOT CARRY ALL CURRENT LAWS. PLEASE SEE CLERK FOR SPECIAL ORDERING." In fact, three of the four rows were completely full of short packets, each less than 50 pages in length: Wizengamot Major Decisions 1564, Wizengamot Major Decisions 1670, Winzengamot Decisions 1899… They weren't in order either, which made everything much more fun.

At the end of the day, though, those shelves were useless to Harry—he highly doubted that the Deputy Headmistress would let him buy the lot of them, especially given that they were 5 sickles each, and it wasn't like he knew what years were important or not.

So he moved to the other side of the law section. There, at least, things were labelled by topic rather than year. After a bit of skimming, Harry finally selected three books that he could reasonably come across as wanting: "Magical Law and You," by Gregory Stint; "Magical Laws for Underaged Witches and Wizards," by Polly Brown, and "The Magical Judiciary: An Overview," by Ben Cordon. The sad thing was that Harry didn't even really have to narrow his choices: overwhelmingly, the books were… disappointing. One in particular, by Alexander Proudfoot, touted being the most popular of its kind (it was a general overview of the Magical legislative system and which laws might effect the average wizard, like Gregory Stint's book), but most of the book was just propagandizing the Wizengamot and the "wonderful" job they were doing, and while a few laws were mentioned the majority of the rest of it was just 'don't break the law and you won't get in trouble'. And, honestly, Harry could see why it was one of the more popular choices—most of the rest were worse.

Deciding that he needed a change of pace, Harry darted over to the section labelled "Magic." By fat the largest section in the bookstore (taking up about 1/3 of the entire shop), the section had 12 long rows: Divination, History of Magic, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Charms, Astronomy/Charms, Potions/Alchemy, Magical Creatures, and Herbology.

Harry decided to peruse each in order. He skipped divination.

History of Magic was notably more useful—History had always been a favorite subject of his, up until Professor Binns ruined it. Thankfully, his extensive time in the library this lifetime had brought it back.

Regardless of his personal opinions, though, that particular aisle was still very, very useful. First of all, it had what might have been the only book even vaguely touching on the economy in the whole store (outside of law, which honestly barely qualified); it was a thin, cheap looking book titled "The History of Magical Currency," and it was written by Tyler Greg, who was, according to Harry's quick skim of the forward, a muggleborn. He added the book to his pile.

As well as Tyler's book, Harry was also able to snap up another history on himself (he'd gotten the others from a separate section titled "Biographies"), a book outlining the past 800 years of magical inventions, and a book on the general history of magical Britain, all of which, with the exception of the text on inventions, were written by half-bloods. The invention book was written by a pureblood, the same as the law books he'd picked up.

None of the other books passed his initial skim of "not complete drivel" (although, to be fair, he was being rather harsh), so he moved onto the next aisle and picked up a primer on Ancient Runes, before immediately passing by the rest of the aisle to get to arithmancy.

As far as he could tell, arithmancy and potions were the closest the magical world got to 'innovation.' According to Harry's recollection, no new transfiguration or DADA spells had been made in over 60 years, divination was… divination, ancient runes were ancient, as were the stars, and alchemy had so dropped in popularity that it hadn't been taught in Hogwarts since Dumbledore's time. Honestly, Hagrid's "invention" of blast-ended skrewts and Fred' and George's various products were the only examples that came to mind of any magical innovation in his lifetime, and not only were both of those currently in the future, they were also either actively frowned upon (as in the case of the joke shop—Fred and George had mentioned more than once the trouble of getting it running in the first place), or actually illegal (as in the case of Hagrid's 'experiments', although to be fair he could understand why.)

That said, he knew for a fact that spells were being invented at this very moment. Or this one. Or… well, the point is that the invention of spells, or improvements on old ones, was something that witches and wizards were actively pursuing; Hermione had made a point of emphasizing that whenever he'd complained about the sheer amount of time she spent on the homework for that elective.

Given that, if he was to improve magical science—make not only spell creation, but also potion creation and ward creation and et cetera creation a thing—arithmancy seemed to be the best place to start.

Given that, the aisle was…

Well.

He supposed it made sense, anyway. No way would he get lucky for once. No, instead he'd get to have the utter joy of slogging through magical mathematics, where nearly every symbol and its corresponding use was different from what little of calculus he already knew, and rather than, you know, actually writing about the work, every single beginner's text in the row used the "let's just so the work of how a bunch of different spells were created, without once adding notes or anything of the sort so our readers can understand what is happening" method of teaching.

He selected one at random (honestly, he really couldn't tell the difference between one or the other), and darted past the next row (sorry Professor, he just couldn't see the point right now) to go straight to DADA. Ah, DADA. Home sweet home.

Harry picked up not, one, not three, not five, but seven books in the DADA aisle—the set on spells that Sirius and Remus had gotten him, the book Remus had taught from, and the book Crouch had used, a book written by a muggleborn on combining non-magical and magical defenses (there was only one copy), and a book on the theoretical side of DADA (because Professor McGonagall had already had a lifetime to drill the importance of theory into his head, and it had stuck.)

Finally, though, both because the remaining books were less clearly useful and because he knew he was on a clock, Harry moved to the next row: charms. Actually, the next two rows were charms, as well as half of the one after it, but there were actually some pretty clear differences between the aisles: the first was more scholarly, the second geared towards day-to-day use, and the third focused on charms based around the natural world and potions.

From the first Harry selected a single book on the currently known effects of "just about anything" (as the book cover proclaimed) on magic. In the second he was more indiscriminate (there were spells to brush his teeth! And tie his shoes! And clean rugs!), but after he began having trouble carrying the small basket stacked with so many books, he put all but two, one on household spells and the other on tips to using spells for reasons other than their main purpose, back, which left him with 20 books.

His school materials had ended up costing him about 250 Galleons (it should've been less, but the lock on his trunk, the extra potions supplies, and the more expensive, but longer lasting, clothing choices that Professor McGonagall had opted for had driven the cost up.) This left him with 150 to do as he wished. While the books he currently had totaled up to a cost of 92 Galleons (for all that they varied significantly in individual price), which actually left him with 58 more Galleons, but he also wanted to hold some back in case he wanted to buy something during the school year. Five more books, Harry decided, would be sufficient. For now.

The final charms row, which was combined with Astronomy, ended up being relatively useless to Harry, but he did pick up a short volume on charm use in potion making—like hell was he going to let Snape ruin potions for him in two lifetimes.

Continuing in that vein, in the next aisle, which was primarily, he bought two volumes on the subject: one focused on technique, and the other ingredients. He'd rely on his memories of his last lifetime on actual recipes (the only reason he'd even picked up so many books in the DADA row at all was to avoid suspicion.) He didn't bother with the alchemy section of the row, not knowing enough for it to be currently useful, and skipped the final two rows—Magical Creatures and Herbology—entirely.

After stopping by a special display case to pick up the latest "Hogwarts: A History" (which was apparently a more popular book than either Harry or Ron had ever given Hermione credit for), Harry turned to his final book.

Out of the goals he hadn't yet addressed, occlumency was already out, given that he hadn't even seen a text referencing it in more than the barest terms. Journalism, too, didn't seem to be covered beyond actually selling the Daily Prophet, so that was out too. This left language—specifically German and French, or really anything at all about the magical countries the other Triwizard participants hailed from.

But there was a problem.

The entirety of Flourish & Blotts was split into six sections: Magic, Law, Biographies, Hogwarts Textbooks, Fiction, and Antiques, in descending size.

There was nothing about international anything. The closest Flouish and Blotts got was History of Magic, which mentioned wars and conflicts with other countries, but solely based on the British view of them, and Biographies, which included a few non-British members, such as Andros the Invincible. That said, when Harry went to check, even they were almost uniformly free of any descriptions of the culture, climate, government, anything of the country.

Harry knew for a fact that other magical countries existed—the Quidditch World Cup was proof enough of that—but apparently anything about the countries themselves, rather than their particularly famous citizens, was not worth mentioning.

After two full circuits around the store Harry finally stumbled upon something at least vaguely related to his initial search: a thick book, titled "Classifying Creatures", in the magical creatures row he'd skipped earlier. While much of the book was simply on how dangerousness was ranked, one chapter, titled "Citizenry and Magical Creatures," was the first he'd found which directly discussed another magical country in specific terms. Not only that, but the first country mentioned was France.

As the book explained, in France Veela were considered legally equivalent to witches and wizards (it was obvious the author did not agree, but that was besides the point.) This left the British government in a bit of a quandary when it had to deal with the upcoming visit of a French Veela diplomat—after all, under British law Veela were not considered equal by a pretty significant margin, and were in fact not even allowed within the Ministry of Magic.

The author (Philip Greengrass) went on to explain how, through some very specific wording and an expedited act of the Wizengamot, visiting French Veela specifically were given the status of foreigner, rather than creature-import. Greengrass also mentioned that this was not the only case of a similar workaround being done.

As fascinating, and horrifying, as that was, he could also see Professor McGonagall tapping her foot impatiently by the register. He dumped the book in his basket and made his way to the cashier. He'd read the rest of the chapter (and his other books) when he got home. For now it was almost 13:00, and time to be done not only with the store but the shopping trip as a whole.

Professor McGonagall's demeanor showed that she agreed.

 **Bookworm! Goal completed. 150 XP awarded.**

 **Hogwarts! Goal completed. 1,000 XP awarded.**

 **You have leveled up!  
**

 **Congratulations, you are now level 14.86.**

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or whatevers, please review or PM and I will try to reply._

 _Up Next: The Train!_


	10. Chapter 9

Harry wandered into King's Cross Station as his Uncle's car peeled off behind him. After the shopping trip, the rest of the summer had passed in a blur, but that was not to say it wasn't productive—in the interval between his excursion to Diagon Alley and his current departure for Hogwarts, on top of keeping up with Judo, he had actually managed to read through every book he had bought in the bookstore, and his findings had been less than pleasant, to say the least.

While he'd gotten through all of his first year textbooks, as well as most of his biographies, defense texts, and histories without learning a single new bit of information, the same did not hold true for the rest of his haul.

In terms of the books about him, while The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter: National Hero, and The British Wizarding War: 1970-1981 just contained the rehashed facts and lies he'd already known about, the same did not hold true for the rest. First, there were the three fictional books he'd picked up: The Boy Who Lived and his Unicorn Adventure, The Boy Who Lived and the Thunderbird Attack, and The Boy Who Lived and the Threatening Dragon; which described him befriending a unicorn herd at five, stopping a Thunderbird flying in from France (apparently the author didn't know they were South American) at seven, and rescuing a pureblood lady (yes, she was actually described as that, without being given a name) at eight. And those were just the three he'd picked up! No wonder Ginny had been head over heels with him before they'd even met! According to the series, he may as well have actually been an all-powerful knight in shining armor who had already rescued her at least once, and then promptly (in the last two pages of the book) swore to marry her after Hogwarts!

Even more disturbing, however, was the last 'non-fiction' book on himself he'd picked up—"October 31st, 1981: An Account of the End of the War," which claimed to be the most accurate representation of what had happened that night. The problem was that it completely conflicted with everything Harry himself knew! First, within the first couple of pages it had already insinuated that his mother had simply dropped her wand and abandoned him in her flight from "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", never mind that she'd been found directly beside his bed, before immediately turning around and arguing that his father had fought a valiant battle to the death, the pureblood way, in defense of his infant son, before succumbing to the 'better blood' of "You-Know-Who." Furthermore, Harry had apparently just floated out of his crib after "The Dark Lord" killed his mother, raised his arms, and destroyed Voldemort in a single rush of accidental magic—" _his Potter blood ringing through his veins_ " as he did. The author veered wildly between emphasizing the power magical heritage had given both "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" and Harry, and stating that "You-Know-Who" was always going to be defeated—after all, look at his horrible crimes against magic!

Simply put, the book had sickened him.

Desperate to move away from the topic entirely, Harry had then flown through The Magical Housekeeping Primer, How to Cast, With or Without a Wand: Defending Yourself in All Cases, Ancient Runes: A Beginner's Text, Spells of Potioneering, The Art of Stirring, The Ideal Cauldron, Magical Inventions: 1200-1985, Nontraditional Spell Use, and Hogwarts: A History; all of which had been chock full of new information with very little bias or prejudice. While Light vs. Dark: A Theoretical Text had broken that streak (mostly because it had managed to expound for 300 pages on what basically amounted to 'there is a difference between the two but I don't know what it is'), by the end of that particular reading session successfully, if temporarily, rid his mind of his own various biographies.

Unfortunately, then Harry had managed to ruin his good mood by reading the law texts he'd picked up. Magical Law and You, while geared towards adult wizards, was actually quite helpful in outlining a number of the more commonly relevant laws (you could not, for instance, pull out your wand in any hallway in the Ministry without risking a fine, but you could have it out in any room.) Magical Laws for Underaged Witches and Wizards was even more helpful—Harry was sure that the author, Polly Brown, would have gotten along fabulously with both the Marauders and the Weasley Twins, as she had gone out of her way to explain that, despite the trace being applied to a wand, the ministry could not detect wandless magic at all and weak enough wanded "spells", like calling the knight bus, also went unnoticed.

It was the third law book which had broken the happy-streak. The Magical Judiciary: An Overview was not meant to act as a description of magical law for the prosecution or defense, but rather a guide for someone listening to a trial either in the visitor's stands or the Wizarding Wireless. Given that, rather than explaining the laws surrounding trials, it mostly just emphasized what an observer could expect to see. That did not keep its few references to actual laws from being any less disturbing. For instance, the administration of Veritaserum was not, as Harry had hoped, something that anyone could use or be forced to use. First, the truth serum would never be used in anything less than capital crimes. Harry thought that was a bit too limited, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world—veritaserum was, after all, both expensive and difficult to make, so the restriction made sense.

Second, and much less understandably, ONLY purebloods could ask for its use—its expense considered too much to waste on anyone without the lineage to cause 'reasonable doubts' as to whether the accused was even capable of committing the crime. Even then, they could always refuse without any backlash—the author, Ben Cordon, explaining that refusal was a perfectly reasonable thing to do—after all, who could trust those pesky prosecutors to keep on topic?

His utter disgust had even caused a new goal— **Tell the Truth** **(1000 XP)** —to appear, giving him a new target of having veritaserum used more frequently in courts.

Upset at the judiciary, Harry had turned to the economy, only to learn that it was little better. According to the (muggleborn) author of The History of Magical Currency, Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts were, effectively, useless. Once a price was set that was where it would stay, come hell or high water. School robes, for instance, should be notably cheaper—after all, the fabric is basic and the standard robes didn't even have any enchantments. But producing fabric, when the robes had initially been created, had been more expensive than the modern day, and the original robes had been much larger and more detailed, so the first clothier had taken that into account when setting price, and even one hundred years later, despite a much simpler design and much cheaper fabric, the price had stayed.

The Goblins, the author explained, tried their best to keep the economy that they too relied on in check—constantly comparing the costs of various goods against their muggle equivalents to determine the exchange rate the yearly influx of muggleborns would be given—but there was little else they could do.

Harry had half-expected another goal after learning that, but as he had not a clue of how to fix it his game remained silent—it generally only seemed to offer a new objective when he had some idea of the direction already.

Finally he had been left with only two books to read, Arithmancy: The Basics and Classifying Creatures. He chose the former.

At that time only a day had passed since the shopping trip, because with liberal use of his maxed out attention and memory, even learning about runes, teeth-cleaning spells, and better potion-making techniques had barely slowed him down from the pace he'd maintained rereading his textbooks.

Arithmancy changed that.

It took three weeks of daily post-Judo library visits before Harry gave up. He'd managed to figure out that he needed to know the precise definition of the limit, Reimann sums, and matrices by comparing where symbols were used in the text against various calculus problems, but after managing to figure that much out he was stumped. Not only did the magical text use symbols that simply didn't have analogs in the muggle texts, which resulted in incredibly different answers for otherwise nearly identical problems, but on top of that, after he'd finally managed to slog through enough calculus books to understand about a quarter of what was written on a single page, he realized arithmancy also included fractals, and specifically the Mandelbrot set, as well as imaginary numbers. At that point he'd given up. Even with his memory and attention he wasn't going to get anywhere anytime soon without a teacher, so Arithmancy was on hold until at least third year.

Unfortunately that left him two weeks to read Classifying Creatures.

Harry looked around as he stepped through the illusionary wall. Platform 9 ¾ was more crowded than he expected, especially considering how early he'd arrived compared to when he used to.

It was mostly families of younger students at the moment—Harry supposed they wanted as much time as possible to say goodbye, just like the parents of the other students had when he'd started at St. Grogory's. There was still about thirty minutes until the train left, though, and it had yet to even arrive, so Harry moved out of the way of the muggle entrance and leaned against a wall, watching the passers-by with interest.

It was a sad truth that due to some combination of Harry's shyness, Hermione's abrasiveness, and Ron's laziness, the "Golden Trio" had never really made friends outside of the trio. Oh, they were friendly, sure, but on a day to day basis the three had just kept to themselves, too wrapped up in their own personalities, problems, and preconceptions (however valid) to spend much effort with anyone else.

That the entire school had a habit of turning against Harry also didn't help.

This time, though, there would be no Golden Trio: he knew he'd never really be able to share the same bonds with this lifetime's Ron and Hermione as he had with the last, and honestly he didn't even want to try.

That said, as loathe as he was to admit it, it also gave him an opportunity. With their jealousies and insecurities a non-factor, and his own left behind with a killing curse, he could make more alliances this time then he ever could last time. And of course the Hogwarts Express was the place to start with that. But who should he meet first?

Harry gazed around the room, considering, before his eyes snapped to a familiar face.

"Are you Neville?" He asked, having quickly rushed across the platform to where Neville's grandmother had been muttering something to the terrified looking boy. His eyes' snapped to Harry's, surprised, and Harry began to explain himself. "I didn't mean to be rude—sorry for interrupting you, ma'am, but I've only just learned about the Wizarding World last month, and I haven't really been able to meet anyone, and according to a book I bought, um, our parents were friends. And, um, they had a picture of you, so…"

Neville still looked frozen, but his Grandmother was now squinting at Harry. "What did you say your name was, young man?"

"Oh, um, Harry Potter. Nice to meet you." Neville gasped. Madam Longbottom frowned.

"You have atrocious manners, Harold. Just like your father, that." Her lips twitched, just a bit, before she abruptly turned to her grandson. "Be a good lad and show Harold around, would you? His parents did quite a bit for both the country and our family in particular, and I won't have you making a mockery of that debt. I know Harry will do his family proud, so be sure to set him on his feet. Perhaps you two could become friends—you're fathers were, you know, but then you are so very different from Frank."

She turned back to Harry, apparently oblivious, or uncaring, of the effect her words had on her grandson, and continued. "I am Madam Longbottom, the mother of Frank Longbottom and current Regent Longbottom. I tutored your father for a number of his formative years in the art of keeping a noble house, and when you feel you are ready to take up your duties, please feel free to write to me so that I may properly instruct you as I had him. I must be off, now, but I hope you have a pleasant trip." With a nod to Harry, and a much firmer one to Neville, she left with a wave of the wand and a pop.

"I'm, um, sorry about Gran. She's a bit… stern, but, um, she means well. Um, do you actually _want_ me to show you around? I can fetch someone else if you like."

Harry had, honestly, not understood the full extent of Neville's self-confidence issues at eleven, but it looked like they were just as bad as they had been before, if not worse. "I came up to you, remember? Hey, did your Gran tell you anything about my parents? It's just, my aunt didn't go to Hogwarts, you know, so she doesn't know much about what my Mom was like after eleven, or what my Dad was like at all. But, according to the books I picked up at the bookstore, our parents were really good friends, so I figured that you might know something of what they were like."

Neville squirmed a bit, obviously uncomfortable under the attention, before his eyes lit up. "I know that your dad was the Head Boy after mine graduated! And, um, your mum was the Head Girl too! My Gran said that everyone knew your mum was going to be Head Girl, but that your dad was a bit of a surprise—he hadn't been prefect, apparently, so no one even knew he was in the running."

"Really?" Harry said, as a whistle blew from behind him. The two boys turned just in time to see the scarlet train, the one that Harry had, by seventeen, considered his yearly courier from one type of prison to another, roll into the station. It was just as shiny as Harry remembered, and gleamed under the fluorescent lights, well cared for despite its age relative to those on other platforms.

"Wow…I've never seen it before…" Neville said. He clutched the handle of his trunk—one of the charmed ones, that was supposed to be carried on its side without wheels—and leaned backward a bit as the conductor blew his horn, notifying anyone who had somehow not yet noticed that the Hogwarts Express had arrived at the station.

"It's big." Harry said. He noticed for the first time that there were seven cars, and seven windows to a car. He wondered if that was on purpose. Honestly, it probably was—from what little he had managed to understand about the Arithmancy book, prime numbers were something that should always be strived for. His current guess as to why was that it was somehow more magically powerful, but he didn't know why, or why the windows of a train would have to be magically powerful.

As both boys stared, agog, the other students on the platform began to move forward. Not wanting to draw attention, Harry grabbed Neville's hand, pulling him towards the nearest open door. "Come on, let's find a compartment!" He knew he had to keep Neville moving—when he was flustered, he tended to talk more, and Harry could work with that to help build his admittedly faulty confidence.

"O-Okay."

It didn't take them long, in the end, to find a compartment—it was still nearly 25 minutes before the express was due to leave, and besides, there were 84 four-person compartments on the train, and Harry knew only 280 students were attending his first year (well below Hogwarts' capacity of 1000, given the results of both the First Wizarding War and Grindelwald's War)—but Harry was still oddly proud of himself for not having to search through five or six cars before one manifested itself.

The two boys had soon stowed their bags and taken seats at either side of the window (one not facing the platform, ostensibly because neither boy had someone to look out for, but more because Harry didn't want anyone on the look for his face to find it, however unlikely that was given his now scar-less face—he still remembered finding Skeeter's article on his "bedraggled, uncaring" appearance the first time around), but before Harry could even get one word out—Neville looking far too flustered to reopen the conversation—the door opened once more.

"Who are you?" Draco asked.


	11. Chapter 10

Harry was, quite frankly, stunned.

When he'd initially seen Neville he'd marveled at the difference between the man he knew and the boy he found. He'd remembered Neville at eleven, of course, but knowing something was altogether different from seeing it.

The same principle held true with Malfoy, but somehow it was so much worse. Malfoy had changed much less throughout his school years than Neville had, mind you, but that did not stop Harry from having to physically force himself not to gawk.

Malfoy…was…eleven.

Eleven.

He was an incredibly young eleven year old boy with slicked back hair who, like Neville, had already changed into the Hogwarts uniform.

Honestly, he was kind of adorable—like what Harry imagined a baby ferret would look like.

Which was why Harry was so stunned.

From the very beginning Malfoy had been his constant antagonist, not so much deadly as relentlessly there to make his life just that little bit more miserable, even when everything else had for once stopped going wrong.

But looking at him now? Harry had a hard time remembering how Malfoy had riled him up so much in the first place.

Never mind, he'd just remembered—Malfoy was the very definition of a bigot.

But. Right now, he was eleven.

Harry held out a hand.

"I'm Harry Potter, nice to meet you."

Malfoy sneered (what was the point of sneering? No, really—why was he sneering?) "Draco Malfoy, heir of the Malfoy family line."

Malfoy was about to continue when Harry fully turned to face Neville, looking at him expectantly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Malfoy jerk back surprised, and had to stop himself from smirking.

"Oh, um. I'm Neville. Um, Neville Longbottom." Neville forced out.

"I know who you are." Malfoy sneered (was his face just frozen like that?)

"Then why did you say who are you when you opened the compartment door?" Harry asked.

"Because I didn't know who you were!"

"Well, sure, but you knew who Neville was. Why didn't you say hello to him first?"

"I've never met him before!"

"So then why didn't you introduce yourself? In case he hadn't heard of you. Actually, why didn't you do that anyway?"

Harry was kind of enjoying this. Malfoy, on the other hand, was not. Neville just looked flustered and like he really wanted the conversation to be over.

"Everyone knows who I am!"

"Really? Everyone?" Harry asked.

"Yes, of course!" 

Harry turned back to Neville. "So you knew who he was? The second he opened the door?"

Neville looked very much like he wished he was still being ignored. "Um… I mean, we've been to ministerial functions together."

Harry whipped back at Malfoy. "So you have met him before!"

"No I—" Malfoy suddenly cut off. He fully paused and took a deep breath. Harry was honestly kind of surprised—he hadn't known that Malfoy knew any techniques to calm himself down. Just as he was about to continue, though, Harry finally noticed the bookends. What were their names again…

"I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. What are your names?" 

Malfoy, apparently assuming he'd been the one addressed, looked an ugly mixture of confused and upset.

The taller one, who was closest to Harry, took Malfoy's silence as a sign to answer. "Umm… I'm Goyle." 

"And I'm Crabbe."

"You only have one name? Like Madonna?" Harry asked. He knew full well they had first names (even if he couldn't actually remember anyone ever mentioning them… he needed to work on easily sorting through his memories. Wasn't one Vincent?)

"Gregory." Said the tall one.

"Vincent." (Ah-ha!)

"Nice to meet you!" Harry said. His neck was getting kind of uncomfortable by now—he'd had to crane it slightly to see around Malfoy, who had yet to push the door fully open—but he persevered. "Have you been introduced to my friend Neville Longbottom?"

Malfoy, apparently, had decided enough was enough. "I may have at some point met Neville, but I don't remember, so it doesn't count as happening!"

Harry stared at him. So much for him calming himself down. Let's see if he can be riled up a bit more… "You remember being born?!"

"Of course not!"

"So then… you weren't born?"

"Hi Neville." Both Vincent and Gregory said.

"Of course I was born!" Said Malfoy.

"But you just said that whatever you don't remember doesn't count as happening." Responded Harry.

"Um… hi." Responded Neville.

"I meant in terms of whether I knew Neville, not whether I existed!" Malfoy snapped.

"I'm Crabbe, and he's Goyle." Crabbe said.

"Pleased to meet you." Neville replied. (Poor Neville—neither Gregory nor Vincent seemed particularly put off that two conversations were happening simultaneously, and he was honestly unsure that Malfoy had even noticed, but Neville looked like he'd very much like them all to go elsewhere as quickly and efficiently as possible.)

"But you already said that you did know Neville, you just hadn't met him." Harry said.

"D'you want a chocolate frog?" Vincent asked Neville. Neville looked quite relieved. Chocolate solved everything.

"Yes, please."

Both goons muscled their way past Malfoy, the shorter one pulling out a handful of chocolate frogs as he did.

"Can I have one?" Harry asked. He loved being eleven—you could suddenly end a conversation with much less recourse than any later age.

"Sure. Keep an eye out for Agrippa, though—he's the one I'm looking for right now." Vincent handed one to Harry.

Malfoy glanced back and forth at everyone in the compartment, before sighing and flopping next to Gregory, leaving Vincent and Harry on one side of the compartment and the rest of the group on the other.

"Give me one too, will you?"

The next stretch of time passed in relative silence as the quintet munched on two frogs each and showed their cards around. Exactly four of the ten were Dumbledore, while the next most common was Hekate and Boudicca who both appeared twice—apparently he really was just that common of a card.

After professing that he had yet to start a collection—but only admitting the reason as needing to remain separate from the Wizarding public—the rest of the boys happily handed over all of their cards to him (not one was a card that none of the other boys had.) Harry himself hadn't really gotten into chocolate cards the first time around, but nearly everyone else had—there was no point in alienating himself further this time, even if it was over something as simple as a few slips of enchanted paper.

A few minutes after they had finished Harry stood up. "I want to go see if I can find anymore of my future classmates. Anyone want to come with me?"

Neville shook his head quickly. Vincent did too—a few minutes earlier he'd taken his Venomous Tentacula out of his trunk, wanting it to get some sunlight, and he and Neville had immediately begun talking about how amazing it was and how to care for it—Vincent had only gotten it last week, and his mother had warned him it would be taken away if it grew too much or died, so he and Neville were plotting together to figure out the ideal iron content in the soil, amongst other things.

Gregory, on the other hand, had fallen asleep.

That said, Harry had honestly thought that Malfoy would come along too—he had to have been going compartment to compartment before they had arrived at Harry's, and while Gregory had gone and grabbed their trunks when it became obvious they were staying, Malfoy couldn't have actually only been searching for Harry, right?

But Malfoy only waved him off. "I know everyone I need to know." Malfoy said. "I'm going to take a nap, like Gregory. My father told me that the welcoming feast takes forever, and it's best to get some shut eye on the train.

By this point, it should be mentioned, the train had been underway for about half an hour. While none of the boys had talked much while eating, they'd all taken their time, showing each card in turn and letting the frog's enchantments go to work for a while before scarfing them down.

So Harry had had plenty of time to think about what to do for the rest of the train ride—blatantly working to boost Neville's confidence with Malfoy in the same compartment was a no-go, and honestly Neville seemed to be benefiting just from having someone else who liked plants to talk to. (Harry briefly contemplated the thought of accidently having placed Neville in with the snakes, before dismissing the idea. Eleven year old personalities were malleable, yes, but not that malleable.)

The idea which Harry had ended up seizing on was based on his reactions to meeting not only Neville and Malfoy, but Crabbe and Goyle as well.

Honestly, embarrassingly, he'd never paid much attention to Crabbe and Goyle the first time around. While they'd been rather prolific bullies, any action they'd taken Harry had mostly simply ascribed to Malfoy.

That said, he did remember a few choice facts about them. First, Crabbe was an excellent duelist. In fact, Harry distinctly remembered thinking it was his only skill. So his apparent interest in herbology was wholly unexpected.

Second, Goyle was a sadist.

This could not be denied. Even in (Harry's first) first year, Goyle had very clearly taken perverse pleasure in causing people pain, and while he had done incredibly poorly in nearly every class (he did not, for instance, pass a sufficient number of OWLs to go into sixth year), Harry had been reliably informed (by Ginny) that Goyle had made it to the top of the class in dark arts, apparently primarily due to his complete and total willingness to practice every curse possible on nearly any classmate—with his particular favorite being the cruciatus.

And yet, Goyle was also the boy who sat next to Neville and laughed as the other boy groaned about getting two Dumbledores in a row.

Goyle, Harry knew from experience, was capable of great evil. But right now he was eleven, and if Harry could only keep him smiling at other things, he could very well curb Goyle's desire to see others in pain.

So what about the rest of his classmates? How were they, at eleven, different than he remembered? And how could he use that?

 **New Elective Goal: Charm Offensive (250 XP)  
Meet the majority of the rest of your future classmates, and leave them with a neutral or positive impression of you.**

"Alright. I'll be back at about half past twelve, okay? We can all have lunch as a group then." The compartment occupants—those awake, anyway—nodded agreeably, and Harry set off.

Harry and Neville had found a compartment about midway between the front of the train and the middle carriage, and Harry knew from experience that the place where the engine was supposed to be was not for compartments, but rather meeting areas for prefects and slugs alike, which meant that Harry only had to go forward a single carriage before reaching the first compartment to check (he had also, as a matter of principle, skipped the first carriage of compartments following the prefects' meeting room—he had no current interest in meeting the prefects, and they (and their friends) always dominated that carriage.

Harry knocked. There was muffled giggling, but no one answered. He shrugged, whipped around, and knocked on the next door—there was no point in forcing a meeting, particularly as the majority of the train (around 6/7ths, in fact) would be filled with upperclassmen.

It took five tries before he got a compartment which opened.

"Hello, my name's Harry, and I'm a first year. I was trying to find some more of my future classmates. To say hi, you know?"

The girl in the compartment—at least third year, if not fourth or fifth, groaned. "What is it about me that attracts muggleborn firsties?"

The other two girls in the car, sitting opposite her, both frowned. They were quite clearly identical twin sisters.

They looked vaguely familiar to Harry—he could almost picture one of them, slightly older, wearing a Ravenclaw tie, but the only twins he remembered were Padma and Parvati and Gred and Forge. Still, they were quite clearly on the express, and given that they were his age, he highly doubted that his presence had somehow caused their parents to have twins instead of a single daughter, so it was just yet another sign that he really had to figure out how to arrange his memories.

"We were here first." One of the girls snapped, before turning to Harry and saying more calmly, "I'm Morag, and this is my sister Isobel."

Despite Morag and Isobel's very strong and thick Gaelic accent, the three had then spent a few minutes getting to know each other, despite the third/fourth/fifth year girl's (a Gryffindor, going by her scarf's colors) displeasure.

While both twins had very obviously put together the clues of Harry's identity quite quickly (and the irritated upperclassman, just as obviously, had not), both tactfully didn't say anything, and instead focused on which house they thought they'd go into (Harry said he'd be happy with any, and the twins both knew they were slated for Ravenclaw), what class they were most looking forward to (Harry said potions, for a laugh, and Morag and Isobel said transfiguration and history, respectively), and similar inquiries.

All in all, Harry thought as he retired back to the hallway, the meeting had gone very well. On top of that, it had made it incredibly clear that despite having MAX memory, until he learned how to properly use it it would be incredibly useless in terms of day-to-day nuances: yes, he did remember exactly where all the hocruxes—hocruxi?—were, but that didn't mean much when your job in preventing the end of the world seemed to have a hell of a lot more to do with politics than dark-lord hunting (for all that the latter was very important too.)

Nodding decisively, Harry turned and knocked on the door opposite the twins. He had, by his count, 67 more compartments to check, but at least he'd be a break in about an hour for lunch.

He'd brought as many muggle snacks as would fit in his muggle lunchbox, and he was very interested to see Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle's response to Sunny Delight—or Rainbow Drops.

He hummed as he walked down the corridor to the next door. This was much more exciting than primary school.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or whatevers, please review or PM and I will try to reply._

 _To the guest- the Moutohora Macaws are technically canon (they have a Pottermore page and everything), but I will try to work in some sort of reasoning over why they are called such when there aren't, in fact, any macaws native to New Zealand. Thanks for pointing that out!_


	12. Chapter 11

The lunch had gone just as Harry had expected it to. They'd partaken at half past twelve, given how late they were told the feast would be, and it had been hilarious (to Harry.)

Neville's meal—watercress salad and veal with cucumbers—raised a few eyebrows, while Crabbe and Goyle's (both sandwiches of some kind) did not. Malfoy himself dined on beef wellington and asparagus, kept at the right temperature via a box with a stasis enchantment (Harry knew wizards had lunch boxes!)

It was Harry's meal, though, which was to them by far the most unusual.

"What is that?"

"Why does it feel so weird?"

"It's so cold!"

From the icepack he'd used to keep his food cold, to his Lunchables, Rainbow Drops, Wagon Wheels, and Sunny Delight, everything was novel to them.

Harry had painstakingly taken the time to describe what little he knew of how the icepack worked, what plastic was, how all of the foods were made, and how common they were in the muggle world. When Harry had gone on the train the first time, he had not brought a lunch at all, and so it had taken him notably longer to learn about just how disparate the muggle and magical worlds were.

Malfoy's reaction, in particular, was a shining example.

"But—but—it doesn't even—! You can't do that!"

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"Not—not eat, just… You can't just… _plastic wrappers_ and _icepacks_ and… you're making this up! This is all done by magic, and you're having a laugh at me!"

"I'm not!" Harry laughed.

"Yes you are! You're having a laugh at me, and you'll be sorry for it! Just wait until I tell my father about you!"

"What's going to happen then?" Harry asked, leaning forward.

"He's—he's—he'll show everyone that you are a liar, and a cheat, and, and that you are mean!" Malfoy nodded resolutely, sitting back as if he'd won the argument. Harry glanced at Neville, but the future Gryffindor seemed content to let things play out without him, and had pressed himself as far into the wall of the compartment as he could.

"I'm not lying, Malfoy." Harry said.

"Of course you are! There's no way muggles have invented anything this useful! My father would have known, and he says muggles haven't done anything that meant anything in years!"

Harry paused, thought a moment, then spoke again. "You do realize that plastic was invented about one hundred years ago?"

The argument had continued well past all of the compartment's occupants having finished their lunch. While Crabbe and Goyle had seemed content to sit silently, and Neville had been all to willing to fade into the wallpaper, Harry and Malfoy had argued over whether plastic was real, whether Harry was a liar, and what the Lord Malfoy would do about either if he found out.

Shortly after one Harry decided that, despite how fun it had been to see Malfoy get increasingly frustrated with Harry's blunt questioning and refusal to admit he was a liar, he ought to get back to his 'charm offensive.'

Prior to lunch Harry had only managed to meet four more of his future classmates, though he had been let into four compartments altogether.

The first had been entirely third years, none of which he'd remembered, all of which had been… eager to meet him. Which had been, well… On the plus side, his negotiation skill had levelled up by one point just because of the work he had had to do without a) seeming like an asshole, b) promising a future date to one of them, or c) having them start outright squealing over meeting him.

So that had been an interesting experience.

As for the second… well, honestly Harry was being kind of generous in saying he'd been 'let in' to the compartment. Three sixth or seventh year girls had burst out of the compartment Harry was about to knock on, snickering and laughing as they did, and disappeared into the next compartment before even noticing him—or closing the door.

Harry had hesitantly stepped into the compartment to check if anyone was hurt, but the girl (who looked about the same age as the ones who had just left) didn't even acknowledge him—in fact, she didn't even look up, so all Harry could see was a mass of mousy brown hair and muggle clothes.

Which had been an unnecessary reminder that the bullying problem at Hogwarts was much more pervasive than just his year.

There wasn't any kind of immediate solution to that, though, so he apologized to the girl for whyever she was crying and shut the compartment door behind him.

The next compartment had been much less depressing, and the first group of first years that Harry actually recognized. Actually, it was Dean, Ernie, and Terry, all of whom were having a rather enthusiastic conversation about magic (and how weird it was.) Harry had no trouble jumping into that conversation, and had left a half hour later feeling much better about the general goodness of Hogwarts students, and much worse about having rarely talked to most of them.

The last compartment he visited was mostly fourth years, as well as the younger sister of one of the fourth years, who Harry couldn't remember, but apparently was being sorted this year. She was very quiet, and so Harry had left the compartment soon after entering.

So despite the _variety_ of his pre-lunch effort, Harry was honestly hoping for a bit more success in his post-lunch effort.

No one in the next two compartments he tried even opened the door.

And of the third compartment, while most doors had actually opened to him, he'd only found two groups of first years: a compartment of future Slytherins (Pansy, Theodore, Blaise, and Daphne) that Harry was willing to swear Draco had originally been sitting with (who had actually been surprisingly polite, if standoffish), and.

Hermione.

Who was sitting alone.

And suddenly Harry realized the wrench in his plans of not being friends with Ron or Hermione. He remembered how lonely Hermione had been before their first Halloween, and how kind and generous Ron had been—but also about how he, too, had not been particularly cheery prior to the "Golden Trio" forming.

"Hello! Are you looking for a compartment? I mean, it is well after we took off, so you should have already found one, but perhaps you were kicked out of your compartment as w—I mean, because it was too crowded or something. Do you want to sit here?"

"…Hello." Harry said. The swallowed the lump in his throat and tried again. "Ahem, um, no, I wasn't looking for a compartment. I just figured I'd try to find as many of my new classmates as possible before we arrive. I know I could probably wait until we arrive at Hogwarts, but according to Hogwarts, a History—"

"You read Hogwarts a History, too? Oh, I loved it! Did you? It was so detailed, and it really helped relieve my worries about the school—I know Professor McGonagall said there wasn't anything to worry about, but I like knowing as much as possible about a place before I arrive, you know? For instance, last summer my parents and I went to Italy, which was absolutely lovely, but before I arrived I must have read at least 30—"

Harry supressed a smile. This wasn't his Hermione—it was the Hermione from before he met her, from before the three of them had went to hell and back together. But something really needed to be done about that, because as much as it made his heart hurt to be near her, she deserved friends. And as it stood now, there was no way anyone—even Ravenclaws—would talk to her.

So he started talking over her.

"—and so I thought—"

"—it says that we're sorted almost immediately after arriving, and from what I understand after that people mostly only interact with their houses, but I want friends who are brave, and smart, and loyal, and ambitious, so I figured if I met everyone _before_ we arrived then we would be more likely to stay in touch once we were sorted. So, in conclusion, my name is Harry and it's nice to meet you." The second Harry had started talking again Hermione's mouth had snapped shut and she'd looked oddly hurt for having had done the same thing to him less than a minute ago. But she had recovered quite quickly, actually, and had even waited a beat to make sure he was finished before responding.

Harry was fairly sure she had just remembered a book about etiquette, or something like that, but everyone had to start somewhere.

"Hello, um, again. I'm Hermione Granger. Are you Harry Potter? I've read lot about you. Did you know that you are currently thought of as the third most famous person in all of magical British history?"

…maybe she hadn't remembered a book.

"It's nice to meet you, Hermione. Yes, my name is Harry Potter, and while I am aware of my fame I don't really want to make a big deal of it—I grew up muggle, just like you, and I haven't been benefited from the popularity in any way, and honestly, given that I'm famous because my parents died, I wouldn't really want to be."

"That's not why you're—" Hermione started, before suddenly processing the meaning of his statement. "Oh. Um."

"Yeah. So anyway, have you experienced the culture shock yet? I know I have."

"The… culture shock? But… we're still in the UK. I mean, even Scotland doesn't have that different a culture."

Harry laughed. "Non-magical Scotland, sure, but as far as I can tell Magical Britain is _very_ different from its muggle counterpart."

Hermione did not look convinced. Harry sat down across from her. He'd been thinking a lot about this, and, given his current situation, it was Hermione—even if it wasn't his Hermione—that would be most able to tell if his thoughts made sense.

"Okay, so, first off, as I'm sure you've noticed, magical people really covet old stuff. I mean, it's not even a 'if it isn't broken' sort of deal, it's more… they genuinely think the older stuff is better. Like, I'm sure you've read in Hogwarts a History about how pissed a lot of magical people were over the Hogwarts Express initially, right? Because, even though they knew there were a lot of problems with the way things were currently done, they didn't want to change it? None of the arguments against the Express really talked about other ways to fix the problems, or how the Express wouldn't—they were all just based on tradition.

And, on another note, there's the whole thing with pureblooded-ness." Hermione's expression, which had been becoming increasingly open as Harry explained his thoughts on the Express, suddenly shut off, and she opened her mouth—likely to begin a long tirade over how unfair the system was—but Harry held up a hand to stop her. He knew he had to get his side out first, or else she'd just assume he was a purist (never mind how much of a misomater he'd be if that was the case.)

"While I'd be the first to admit that the magical world's current system of blood purity is incredibly bigoted and wrong, if you look into the historical reasonings behind it—like they explain in The Magical Judiciary, and Magical Laws and You, and a bit in History of Magic—it's mostly based on how, in order for anyone to know if _you_ are good, they have to look at your lineage to see if your _ancestry_ is good. And because most magical people only interact with other magical people, they have no way of knowing what your parents, or your parents' parents, or my mother's parents are like. While, if either of us were pureblooded, they'd be able to immediately find evidence of how they behaved and, therefore, how we'd likely behave in the future.

It's how they set up the Wizengamot, too—all of its members are selected after multiple people from the same family do good things for the wizarding world as a whole. Same for titles—the Most Ancient houses are the ones which are considered to have done the most when magical Britain was initially founded, and the Noble title is added on whenever a member of a house does something really big selflessly for a Most Ancient house—that's how my last name was ennobled, actually—because everyone and their mother 'knows' that I defeated Voldemort, that means that I avenged the Most Ancient house of the Monroes, who were all killed by him."

Hermione reluctantly nodded. "That makes sense. It doesn't mean that it's good, though!"

"I'm not saying it does! I just used those examples as evidence of magical Britain's overall culture, which cares much more about ancestry and tradition than the England that we're used to does."

"That's true..." Hermione said. "Like how in Ancient Rome boys would always just be named after their fathers and have to continue his legacy."

"Basically, yeah." Harry agreed.

"What else have you noticed?"

Harry hummed, trying to think where to start.

He ended up staying with Hermione for most of the rest of the trip, discussing his ideas on everything from clothing style to career preparation—in fact, he only left because he knew he'd have to scramble to knock on the rest of the doors in time to get back to his own compartment before arrival.

That didn't mean that the discussion had been entirely fruitful, however. She had dismissed and flat out refused to hear some points purely on the basis of her own understanding of the way the world worked then any particular issue with his own reasoning, and his own trouble finding ways to describe different things without letting out that he had already been to Hogwarts was difficult enough that she'd soundly refute a few arguments he knew held water.

On top of that, she'd remained more than a little unintentionally rude throughout, interrupting him regularly, stating that she knew better than him rather than explaining her side, and always, always, letting a book she had read have the final word, no matter how hard he tried to prove that many of them were clearly written in an unresearched or over-biased way.

So. Not his Hermione.

But she was still nice, for an eleven year old, and he was fairly sure that by the end of their conversation she was less attention-starved, which would hopefully mean she wouldn't be as… ardent… in her attempts to make friends.

The next few compartments flew by, with no one particularly willing to talk more than a minute or two with him, but all who opened their door perfectly polite.

There were only two hiccups at all, in fact—the first, running into Zacharias Smith, who had been… less than complementary about Harry's so-called fame (not that Harry didn't disagree with him, but it wasn't like he'd had any control over it), and the second, finding Ron's compartment.

Ron and another first year named Ernest were in the middle of a chess battle, so they'd also been fairly quick to shuffle him out of the room, but before he'd left he'd noticed Ron giving him sidelong glances—specifically at his forehead. While he'd introduced himself as Harry—and only Harry—throughout the entire train, only some of the students, mostly those who'd asked, had managed to figure out that he was _the_ Harry Potter. Ron hadn't asked, but given where, exactly, he'd chosen to focus his attention, Harry was fairly sure he'd wanted to, which wasn't a surprise: it had taken years for Ron to overcome his initial… displeasure over Harry's name, and Harry was sure he'd have to do something about not only Ron, but also Zacharias, the many fanatical girls, and, next year, Colin to make sure that their love or hate of his fame was at least mitigated somewhat.

But that was something to think about later. For now, though, Harry took the

" **Charm Offensive Goal Completed (met the majority of your classmates and left them with a neutral or better impression of you) 250 XP Awarded.**

 **You have leveled up!**

 **Congratulations, you are now level 15.2.** "

Announcement as success enough for the train ride and slipped back into his own cabin, where the five boys therein began to make their frantic last-minute preparations for the feast. Draco had even gotten over his earlier fury over Harry 'making up' muggle accomplishments to instruct him on the proper way to tie up the ribbon at the neck of the robe—not leaving it open, like Harry had usually done, or tying it up like a shoelace, which was all Harry had bothered to do during feasts, but rather a way that was supposed to look somewhat like a flower—which was especially important during the Sorting Feast, Draco said, because that was when the ribbon would change color depending on the house you got into.

At last Harry was ready—shiny black boots perfectly laced in the normal fashion, all encompassing black robe making him feel a little too much like he was wearing a dress, and fancy flower ribbon right at his neck to make the feeling stronger. After one last attempt to use his metamorphmagus skill to neaten up his hair—which actually worked better than expected, even if it still didn't look nearly as styled as Draco's or even Neville's, Harry was happy to say he was as ready as he could possibly be.

Outside the compartment window the rush of greens and browns slowly coalesced into clearly visible trees and bushes, and Harry opened the cabin door, stepping aside to let Vincent, Draco, Neville, and Gregory out. It was time for the sorting feast.


	13. Chapter 12

Hogwarts was just as Harry remembered it: large, looming, and altogether magical. Seeing it had been the first time that he fully believed that there was not only a magical world out there, but that he was a part of it—that, as Hagrid put it, "you're a wizard, Harry."

In his current life, with Neville holding tight to the side of the boat across from him and Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot sitting behind them, it had just the same effect, just the same impact. It was its strange mixture of soothing calm, empowering regalness, and enigmatic aura that made it so awe inspiring, and the sudden but absolute silence around him echoed the feeling as the 1991 first years crossed the lake to Hogwarts.

It was only as they finally hit land, though, that Harry began to understand the true power of Hogwarts.

 **Alert!**

 **You have now entered a** **warded zone** **. While within this** **warded zone** **, you will gain the additional advantage of "Hogwarts' Protection", which will work to defend you against a direct and severe magical attack, should you face one. This advantage will only apply while you are within Hogwarts' wards.**

Huh.

So that's… cool. Explains how he survived against Quirrell the first time, at least.

"Harry, is everything okay?" Neville asked. Harry blinked, suddenly realizing that he hadn't moved since receiving the notification.

"No, I'm fine. Let's go catch up." Harry said. The two of them followed the rest of the class into the entrance hall and, after a brief encounter with ghosts, into the Grand Hall.

More importantly, he followed his class all the way up to the Sorting Hat.

This was it.

This could be the end.

It had occurred to Harry, several months into his second life, that the Sorting Hat had been the first to ever read his mind. Not only that, but, unlike all of his other brushes with mind-reading, this one could not be circumvented by occlumency or outright avoiding the situation: Harry had to go under the Hat. So this was the moment that Harry had been waiting for—either "new management" would have to outright act in his favor, ensuring somehow that his secret wasn't found out, or else the Hat would in some way alert the wizarding world at large of his circumstances, and he would be shipped off to the Unspeakables or some other equally mysterious group, where he wouldn't have to worry about anything anymore.

In front of him Professor McGonagall unrolled her student list, calling out the first name: "Abbot, Hannah!"

Harry peered around the room. The students were the same—dividing sharply into four houses, each only clapping, only reacting, to first years who got into their own house. The Professors were the same, too; those who didn't teach the first years were half asleep, while those who did were busy surveying their new students and talking amongst each other as each went under the Hat.

The eyes in the Great Hall were the same too, even if they seemed more blatant this time around: despite his lack of scar, he couldn't help but notice their constant discomfiting stares, their whispers, their not-so-subtle pointing… he wanted to believe that was just because he had gone door to door on the train (which, given its apparent peculiarity, he was fairly sure was a part of it), but he knew that if he hadn't been so oblivious the first time he would have seen the very same eyes, the very same results of his unwilling fame.

He wondered what their eyes would feel like when—if—he wasn't sorted, or if the Sorting Hat outright shouted "imposter! Imposter!"

The ceiling was as pleasant as ever, the starry night a beautiful backdrop for the upcoming feast. So were the banners and chandeliers which dotted the Grand Hall, fluttering and glittering above the wizards' and witches' heads. Harry even thought he saw Fawkes perched on one chandelier, but the phoenix blended in so well with the flames that he couldn't be sure.

Harry wondered if Fawkes knew his secret. What the bird could and could not do had never been well explained to him, so the idea of Fawkes somehow being aware of Harry's 'temporal displacement' wasn't completely idiotic.

Dumbledore didn't seem to be paying him any more attention than he had the first time, at least—his ostentatious robes commanded attention, but his own eyes were fully focused on the child currently being sorted (he clapped for each of them, looking genuinely pleased no matter where they went, but Harry knew that at least some of that was fake, a veneer.)

Snape, on the other hand, did not even seem pleased when the Slytherins got sorted. Honestly, he looked more tired than Harry remembered, but it was hard to tell if that was because something had changed or because he hadn't really been focused on the bags under the Potion Master's eyes the first time around.

"Hopkins, Wayne!" Professor McGonagall shouted. She'd moved on to the Hs.

Harry pulled his pointed hat down a bit. Maybe this was a bad idea. He wanted to run away, to hide in his cupboard until the uncomfortable feelings in his chest disappeared. He really should have thought this through more, instead of deciding to leave it up to management. What if he had been supposed to find a way around it? What if, because he had not, the entire world would be bulldozed over ala the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? What then?

"Li, Su!"

So far everyone had been sorted into the house they had been in last time. It had taken a bit longer on Malfoy then he'd remembered, and the time taken on Hermione was actually a bit quicker, but currently Neville's was going on as long as it had the first—oh, and there he went to Gryffindor. Good. Harry was sure he would have done well in Hufflepuff, but Gryffindor was what had really forced Neville to tackle his flaws outright. Harry would just make more of an effort to help him along the way, this time. Hopefully.

Hopefully—hopefully he would be able to stay. He hadn't been thinking like that years, months, days ago, but just as time seemed to drag on longer and longer the closer he got to donning the hat, his thoughts seemed to be drastically changing in relation to the same variable too.

Before all he had thought about was how nice it would be, how relieving it would be, to not carry his burden any longer, but now all he could think about was what he wouldn't— _might not_ —be able to accomplish. Second lives were weird like that, he guessed.

"Patil, Padma!" Professor McGonagall shouted. Harry's jaw clenched.

He wondered if there was an afterlife. That was something he hadn't really thought of, before. If there was, what happened to the already dead people's souls when management stepped in? Were they shoved uncaringly into their younger bodies like Harry, but with their memories wiped out? Or were they utterly destroyed, and replicas made to form this odd experiment?

For that matter, what was the point of management's actions, anyway? They were apparently willing to destroy lives by transporting only a select few back in time, but the same few were also told they had the chance to save everyone they knew if only they tried.

Was management lying? It was hard for Harry to believe they were just giving them this chance, willingly. What purpose would they have, anyway, for doing this, given that they apparently had the power to manipulate reality in any way they wished?

Was it a game? Harry knew simulation games were gaining in popularity in the muggle world, and many of them were the type in which it was impossible to directly control the tiny people on the screen. Was management simply playing him, playing everyone, like a game?

"Perks, Sally Anne!"

Time was running out and there was little Harry could do.

Blaise Zabini was standing next to him, now. Harry barely remembered him, honestly. He wondered what he was like—he knew the reputation his mother had, and there had been (as far as he knew unsubstantiated) rumors that Blaise enjoyed crossdressing, but as an eleven year old he was simply a boy with a brush cut and startlingly green eyes.

Huh. He had green eyes. Another thing Harry hadn't noticed.

On his other side stood Lisa Turpin. She'd ended up in Ravenclaw, if Harry remembered correctly. He wondered if she was a bully. He hadn't really paid attention the first time, but he had certainly heard enough from Luna to know that Ravenclaw was practically teeming with them. Hell, the only difference between Ravenclaws and Slytherins was that while one focused their fangs outwards, the other seemed to find particular pleasure by clawing their own face off.

Merlin, Hogwarts was wonderful. And the Sorting Ceremony may as well have been a 'pick your own torture' ceremony with the options available. Harry had no doubt that Hufflepuff had just as many problems underneath the surface, even if they were generally ignored too much for their issues to be visible to the rest of the school.

Which was not to say any house was purely bad. Hell, even if he'd ended up going to Stonewall, or Smeltings, or wherever else, he knew that no place would have been perfect, would have been without any issues. But in Hogwarts? Where there was little to no adult supervision, where danger lurked behind every corner, where all the students had access to _magic?!_

Yeah, Harry would honestly have preferred a bit more effort from the professors.

"Potter, Harry!"

Harry's eyes snapped forward. There was no time left, no more distractions. He took one step, then another. In front of him Professor McGonagall stood, holding the grumpy Sorting Hat as she waited for him to take his seat.

Quickly Harry began to give short prayers to every higher being he could think of—management, God, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, Hekate, Merlin—and as he sat on the stool he knew every single thought that he brought into existence was useless, his lives, first and second, being proof enough that if there was anyone in control of an afterlife they probably didn't give a shit about him.

As the Hat descended, though, Harry couldn't help but give one last prayer, this one to Death, the Death that had given his ancestors the Elder Wand, Resurrection Stone, and Invisibility Cloak; that Death, at least, he had some immediate proof of.

But what if that same Death was the one who had been replaced by management?

The Hat fell onto his head, half covering his eyes. Harry was too afraid to move it.

And then…

Silence.

All-consuming silence.

Where was the Sorting Hat's voice? His critiques of Harry's life? His loud, long awaited accusations of lies and fraud?

Where was the sound of anything, anything at all, that would end the silence?


	14. Chapter 13

"Gryffindor!"

What?

The Gryffindors started cheering. Fred and George started chanting his name just like they had the first time.

Harry pulled the hat off his head, placing it back on the stool. His ears were buzzing. Had—was he in the clear? The hat hadn't said anything to him, but it has also reacted exactly the same way it had before. He sat at the table and faced the front. The next student, Sophie Roper, was mounting the steps, but the Gryffs hadn't stopped cheering. He'd forgot how many people had clapped his back.

Alright... well, that's that done then.

The rest of the feast passed about the same as it had the next time, but he'd made sure to spend a bit more effort pointing out the... issues... with Neville's upbringing and Seamus's dad's secret. He also made sure to hobnob a bit more than he had last time. They were all eleven, sure, but even that little difference in maturity made it so much easier than it had been as St. Grogory's, and besides he knew far too well what _not_ getting to know his classmates did to him; he'd really prefer it if everyone didn't base his entire personality on whatever the Daily Prophet said it was.

All good and/or boring and (as usual) oddly déjà vu-esque things must come to an end, and before long the first year Gryffindors were checking out their brand-new rooms.

At about nine, however, Harry made noises about getting ready for bed, and slipped into the neighboring bathroom.

Almost immediately, though, he slipped from the bathroom into the common room. He had a goal, tonight: one thing he really wanted to get done, and which, thanks to a faintly remembered conversation between him and Ron, he was fairly assured he could do. But it had to be done tonight, for more reasons than one.

From the common room Harry progressed to the hallway, assuring the fat lady that he was just exploring and would be back before curfew.

Two—no, three—staircases later, as well as a series of left turns which, in the muggle world, would have had him going in circles instead of progressing up an additional two floors and crossing about half the castle, Harry got just where he wanted.

And just like he wanted, after pausing in front of a particularly blank section of wall, that wall swung open, revealing the two red headed demons.

"Ah, Forge, look! It's an ickle firstie!"

"And what do you think an ickle firstie is doing here, Gred?"

"Exploring." Harry answered for George. He grinned—here were two people that always made him smile.

"Well, then, ickle firstie, isn't it about time that you finished exploring and headed off to bed? Tiny people like you need a lot of sleep, you know."

Harry didn't bother responding, instead zeroing in on the blank piece of paper in their hands. "What's that?"

"This?" Fred said, waving it in front of Harry's face. "Why, it's just some parchment-"

"-just a little parchment" interjected George,

"Why would you think it was anything else?"

"Because it's really worn and folded up." Harry said. He tilted his head. This was it—he had to do this right. "I bet I know what it is."

"Do you?"

"Does the ickle firstie?"

"Well, Harrikins, what-"

"-exactly-"

"-do you think this still-very-blank sheet of parchment is?"

"I bet," Harry started, "I bet that it's something you're going to show me."

"Oh, do you?"

"Is that what you think?"

"Yep," Harry said, popping the p. "And do you know why?"

"Why?" Both twins asked at once. He could tell they still thought they were humoring him.

"Because if you don't then I won't tell you what I know about the Marauders."

So, here's the thing. Harry really didn't want to be the one to open the map. He needed it to be them—for them to see who, exactly, was sleeping in their baby brother's bed. This wasn't out of any sense of cruelty on his part, but rather because he'd really prefer not to be a figurehead in the debacle that would no doubt follow, and he wanted to put as much distance and deniability between himself and the 'event' as possible. That said, he also really, _really_ wanted to get the Marauder's Map back—both to replicate it, and because at the end of the day it was something that his father had helped make. So, while his plan wasn't ideal for either of his goals, he figured that it worked the best at accomplishing both. And, given the gob smacked expressions on Fred and George's faces, so far his plan was going just fine.

"The Marauders?!" They shouted in unison.

"Yup. I know their names, I know a few of the passages they used, and I know a lot of the ways they avoided blame."

The twins glanced at each other. Harry knew that they already knew the passages (they were, after all, a primary purpose of the map), but he was banking on them being interested enough in who they were and how they (allegedly) avoided punishment that his deal would go through.

"Their _name_ names or their pranking names?" Fred finally asked.

"Both."

"Why us? And why do you think the paper is so important?" George asked.

"I have been here less than a day and already know you're the biggest prankers in school, and honestly? It's less about the parchment and more about getting on your good side." This was only partially a lie—his celebrity and relationship with Ron had meant that they'd never gone out of their way to prank him, but then they did generally stick to pranks which targeted the largest amount of people possible at the time, pranks which were impossible to target, as a rule. He was just banking on them not knowing that he knew that, and assuming they got the better end of the deal because of it.

"Deal!"

It worked. Harry was whisked into (one of) their lairs. Today, he knew thanks to Ron's explanation last time, they were planning a little something to target all the Ravenclaws the next morning—an odd potion which, when put on the steps up to Ravenclaw tower, would stick to their shoes, making it incredibly difficult for them to lift it (artificial weight combined with stickiness, if Ron was to be believed. The twins had explained, once caught, that they'd figured the 'Claws had needed some exercise.)

At the moment they seemed to have already finished the preparations, if the messy cauldrons and half full vials were any hint, which explained why they had been so quick to notice him.

He only had a second to look around, though, before his head was physically turned back to the map (he'd forgotten how unaware of personal space they were.)

"Alright, Harrikens, listen carefully."

"The deal is, you tell us who the Marauders were— _both_ their names—and how they got out of trouble,"

"and we'll show you what deep, dark secrets the parchment is hiding."

"Or—and this is really just an idea, I mean, one that is a deal-breaker, but just an idea nonetheless, how about I give you the names, then you show me the map, then I give you a couple—not all, I still need some leverage for the rest of the year—a couple of the ways they avoided punishment."

The twins took barely a second to decide. "Deal!"

"Now, give us the names of the magnificent,"

"the marvelous,"

"the stupendous,"

"the amazing Marauders! Or we'll kick you out."

Harry sighed and started rattling off the names, making sure not to react overly much to any of them—Pettigrew was a little-known hero of the war, while Black was a little-known villain. Both had been kept out of the media, as a whole, so neither he nor them could be expected to know much at all about either. "Moony is Remus Lupin, Padfoot is Sirius Black, Wormtail is Peter Pettigrew, and Prongs is James Potter, my dad."

"So that's how you know about them!" The twins cried. He'd thought he'd gotten them straight in his head—he'd learned at some point that they would either switch names entirely or try to keep their first initials the same—but at some point he'd confused them again. They then began almost talking over each other in their eagerness to ask questions, but Harry held up his hands before they could really get rolling.

"We had a deal, gentlemen. Now, honor your side of the bargain and at a later date we can see if additional deals can be made for more information."

Fred and George—or George and Fred—nodded eagerly, before turning their attention to the still blank parchment.

"This, ickle firstie, is the Marauder's Map." One started. Harry looked suitably stunned.

"I know!" The other said. "That's why you've got us so eager!"

"Anyway, watch this: We solemnly swear we're up to good." Immediately the parchment sprang to life, and, just as Harry remembered, ink began pouring over the paper to create the symbols that his dad and uncles and the traitor had worked so painstakingly hard on all those years ago.

"See?" One of the twins said. "The entirety of Hogwarts—mapped out! Every secret passage, every nook and cranny, and, most importantly—where everyone is!"

Harry agreed, and his eyes darted around the map frantically. "I see, there's my dorm, and there's—" he stopped, then before the twins could get too curious, finished his sentence. "There's all my dorm mates."

Where was Pettigrew? Everyone else was there—Seamus, Ron, Dean, Neville, even a cat apparently named Tiger, but no Pettigrew. Actually, there was a rat, but it was unnamed, just a tiny little blob on Ron's bed when you zoomed in- "Scabbers" had almost immediately dashed into and fell asleep when they'd entered the dorm, and Harry could tell that the position was the same. So why wasn't Pettigrew's name showing up?

It took Harry almost half an hour to leave the twins after that, given their eagerness to get any drop of the Marauder's wisdom left (they knew, of course, that his father was dead, but they also assumed that the other Marauders were too and Harry did little to correct them.) Still, after Harry explained both their habit of pinning the crime on someone else (and the importance, not that they'd considered it at the time, of making sure the scapegoat actually deserved it), as well as mixing up M.O.s as much as possible—all four Marauders excelled in Transfiguration, for instance, so they tried to avoid using it unless they wanted to get caught.

Still, he was back in the Common Room well before curfew and explained away his absence by admitting to having had dropped his lucky pen (he had, actually, dropped a pen to prove this, but when he went looking for it it had disappeared.)

Before long all the lights were out and the other boys, exhausted by the incredibly long day, took almost no time at all to fall fast asleep. Harry, though, had other concerns.

His "Plan B" wasn't really... ideal, by any sense of the imagination, and he wasn't even sure if it would work, but it would get Pettigrew out of the dorm for at least one night, and Harry wasn't really able to sleep with him resting only one bed away.

So when he was absolutely sure that all of his dormmates, as well as his target, were asleep, he carefully and quietly got up, stunning Pettigrew and carrying him by his tail into the common room, where he used the recently re-learned incarcerous spell to bind the fainted rat, placing it carefully in the middle of the table in front of the fire.

Using a bit of scrap paper, and fudging his handwriting by taking his time and writing certain letters differently, he then wrote out a note, which he placed next to Scabbers. It read:

"This rat has been alive for over ten years. Does no one else think that is weird?"

He signed it 'The Renegade'. In order to keep suspicion away from him, though, in addition to his upper level spells and writing, Harry crept up to the fifth years boy's dorms and purposefully banged his knee against something, loud enough so that its residents would recall it, before scampering back down and into bed.

It took him another hour to fall asleep, an hour of waiting with baited breath to see if he had been in some way caught. He was _so_ happy that cats weren't allowed in the common room after curfew—the combination of fear that McGonagall was watching him or some cat would try to eat Sirius's get out of jail free ticket would have been too much otherwise.

But no one charged into the dorm room, or started setting off alarms. So Harry was able to sleep as deeply as he pleased. That is, until about seven o'clock.

At which point a commotion began to happen in the common room, one which was very loud and persisted for such a time that the entire group of first years had no choice but to clamber out of their still-incredibly-warm beds and see what everyone was shouting about.

There, just as he'd left him the night before, was Pettigrew. But when Ron ran to grab him a seventh-year prefect held him back. Percy, Harry could see out of the corner of his eye, was standing frozen in one of the corners, and the twins were being interrogated by the other seventh-year—apparently they'd spent all of the previous year going through possible names, and one of the final contenders had, in fact, been the renegades (how was Harry supposed to know that?) and so suspicion had initially been placed on them.

Thankfully, though, a few seconds after the first-year girl's dorm also opened, Professor McGonagall burst into the scene.

While Harry feigned confusion and curiosity to Dean, Professor McGonagall quickly further incarcerated the rat in a well transfigured cage, before ushering everyone but the Weasley boys, prefects, and 5th year boys back to their respective dorms. She did, however, haltingly admit that a charm had shown Scabbers to be an animagus, and to expect to have to be interviewed by an auror in the next few days.

Once they were back in the dorm, however, the noise barely dimmed. In their dorm, however, the mood was a bit different.

"What's an animagus?" Joshua Runcorn asked. Harry barely remembered him, honestly. He'd always been a quiet boy and had spent most days hanging out with his second year Ravenclaw brother David.

"It's, like, it's a person who can, um, turn into an animal. It's really hard to do, so only a few people can do it. Professor McGonagall's one, actually—she can turn into a cat." Neville answered.

"So... there was someone else in this dorm who was sleeping in Ron's bed without anyone knowing it?" Harry asked.

"It's worse than that." Seamus said. "Ron told me that Scabbers had been Percy's before it was his."

All of the boys made faces.

"That... really sucks." Dean said. They all sat in silence, the idea of someone—an adult, in all likelihood—being in their room, sleeping in Ron's bed.

"We have to make a pact." Harry announced. "A pact to never, ever tease Ron about this, and to only bring it up if he wants to. We owe it to him as, like, fellow humans." Neville, Dean, Joshua, and Seamus nodded.

After a few minutes of debating and squabbling, they sat cross-legged in a circle and took the farthest hand of each neighboring boy, crossing their own arms as they did so. Solemnly each boy swore one by one, then all as a group, that none would ever bully another for anything that they couldn't control. It was a noticeably broader oath than Harry had initially thought he'd get, but the first iteration— "we swear not to make Ron feel bad about the animagus rat"— was deemed to narrow and Dean had suggested one which would work for future crappy situations too.

After they'd completed their oath via spiting on their hands and exchanging very formal handshakes the boys settled down for a few games of exploding snap—the noise through the walls had dimmed somewhat, but it had been made quite clear that they weren't allowed to leave until given permission, and they still hadn't even been given their schedules.

As Harry played, however, his thoughts began to wander. He'd had a few vague plans brewing in his mind over the last few days, and it was time to solidify them enough so that they became goals.

The first and most important thing, in his mind, was to reintroduce himself to Hagrid. The half-giant had been the one to give him his first birthday cake, to buy him his first pet, to attend every single game he ever played even though it was hard for him to squeeze his way up the stairs to the stands. Harry's much more prompt response, and admission of lack of knowledge, had ensured that they had yet to have a reason to talk, however, and Harry thought it was important to change that.

 **-First Friend—Reintroduce yourself to Hagrid, the first person you considered a friend (150 XP)**

Well, apparently it wasn't as important as he'd thought—at least not for the game. Still, he'd try to do that this afternoon if the aurors didn't end up taking all of his time.

The next most important thing also related to past friendships more than actually necessary goals, but that didn't mean Harry cared about her any less.

 **-Winged Companion—Reobtain Hedwig (150 XP)**

He figured he could explain her away by saying he wanted to be able to talk to his family; Hogwarts supplied school owls, yes, but they were three knuts per use, which was why so many students ended up buying their own.

Finally...

 **-First Impressions—Have your professors assume you are good, but not top of class, based on your first class with each (250 XP each)**

It had taken him a while to decide what he wanted to accomplish in his first classes (to stand out? To hide in the background? To excel in certain classes and waver in others?), but he thought that this would be the best way to go about it. Introductions are important, after all.

Before he had any more time to think of whatever else he hadn't though of, though, Neville's stomach growled. Loudly.

"What time _is_ it?" Seamus asked. He stood up and peeked through the door while Harry checked his wristwatch. It was quite old but still accurate and, most importantly, it wasn't affected by magic.

"Um... 8:30." He said.

"Breakfast ends in a half an hour!" Joshua whined. "And we need to go back here and grab our books before our first class, too." The other boys nodded.

"Seamus, you see anything?" Dean said.

"Completely empty. Do you think we should just make a run for it? Not feeding us is inhumane, I tell you!"

Harry was tempted to agree. Technically breakfast started at 7:30, and they'd been stuck in their dorm since 7:15. They hadn't even been able to use the bathroom—they shared one with the second and third year boys, and the only entrance was in the hallway.

"How about we just take a couple of the books each? That way, no matter where we end up, we'll just share the books between ourselves. If we skip washing up in the bathroom, that should give us time to eat." Harry said.

"My brother said that you're usually paired up in groups of two in classes." Joshua offered, so the five boys set off getting three copies of all six textbooks. It was decided that each group would pair off and each boy would carry three books, that way they knew that everyone would have the right books at the start of class. Seamus and Dean paired up, as did Neville and Joshua. Harry volunteered to carry all six of his books—it had been his idea in the first place—and would therefore be sitting next to Ron.

Plan complete, the boys carefully crept into the Common Room. Many of the other dorm room doors were ajar, and they could see faces peeking out of all of them, likely just as hungry as they were, but none of the other students were bold enough to leave after being explicitly told not to.

The second they got into the hall all five boys dashed off, with Harry in the lead (he'd sworn he remembered the route they'd taken the day before, and been deemed their best bet for arriving at the Grand Hall in time.) The first years banged down the stairs, stormed through a couple hallways, and swept around left and right turns alike, until at last they dashed into the Great Hall, each and every one out of breath.

Three of the four tables were full of students, but the one they were headed for had not a soul on it (except for Nearly Headless Nick, who was hovering around the middle and exclaimed when he saw them.)

The eyes of the entire hall on them were daunting, but after Dean whispered "house of the brave" under his breath each boy somehow found the courage to scrabble onto the benches of the Gryffindor table, quickly serving themselves whichever foods they'd thought they could scarf down the fastest (Harry may have known the way to the Great Hall, but there was no way he could claim knowledge of how to get to History of Magic, which was supposed to be their first class, so they needed as much wiggle room as possible.)

As Harry quickly cut up his sausages he glanced at the head table. Out of all the professors, McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Snape were notably absent, and he began to wonder if perhaps they should have stayed in their room after all, growling stomachs or no.

Before long, however, the rest of the table began to fill with equally ravenous students, and by the time that Professors Flitwick and Sprout were handing out schedules the Gryffindor table was almost as full as the others.

Finally, with only five minutes left until the start of first period and most of the rest of the Hall empty (including the Slytherins, oddly enough, but then he couldn't actually remember them being given their schedules in the dining hall in the past; it was entirely possible that Snape had given them their timetables the night before), Professor McGonagall burst through the doors, looking as out of breath as all of her house had just minutes before.

"There you are! I thought I told you to stay in your dorms!" She snapped. One of the seventh-years reluctantly stood up.

"You did, but... well, we knew breakfast was nearly over, and... there wasn't really anyone to ask permission from, so, we just kind of went."

Aw, she hadn't stuck the finger on them! Well, honestly that was probably because 'we were just following the first-year boys' wasn't a particularly good excuse, but still!

Professor McGonagall sighed. "All Gryffindors have been excused from their first class, anyway. The aurors will be calling out a few people over the next hour, so you'll have to stay in the Great Hall, but I assure you you will get your schedules by ten." With that she whipped around again, darting back into the hallway.

"Alright! No first class! Now that's a way to start school!" Seamus said. Harry, Dean, and Joshua laughed.

"If it's all the same to you I'd like it to be a bit more normal from now on." Neville muttered, but that only made them laugh harder.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions/comments/concerns/ideas/edits, put them in a review and I'll try to answer/read/explain/incorporate/fix them._


	15. Chapter 14

The aurors only called up a couple of Percy's classmates, the prefects, and a few random students who Harry assumed had been the ones to stumble upon the note first, and the rest of the Gryffindors were just told to sit around and wait. That said, they were rather proactive in dismissing the students, but they went by age group—first the seventh years, then the sixth… Ron stumbled in around twenty minutes after Professor McGonagall originally showed up, and while he had been tense in the beginning, the longer the boys talked about everything but why they were the only ones in the hall the more he calmed down.

"Oh—and Ron, we didn't know what classes we would have, or how long it'd take for us to get there, so we'll just share my Transfiguration textbook today, ok?" Harry said.

"Yeah. We all paired up. Me and Dean, Josh and Neville... that way we'd have all the textbooks without actually having to carry all the textbooks, you know?" Seamus added.

"Cool." Ron said. He grinned, and grabbed a couple of Harry's to carry when they did leave.

Eventually, though, it was time for class. At least there was no way to get lost—Professor McGonagall had simply ordered them to follow her.

Transfiguration passed about the same as Harry remembered. Admittedly, there was no surprise cat to human transformation to start things off, and the Gryffindors were far quieter than they had any right being, but in general it was exactly as he expected. It was the first day, so almost the entirety of class was a brief explanation of how grading and essays worked followed by mind-numbingly boring theory. Harry did make sure to answer more questions than he had last time, but he never raised his hand when Hermione's was the only one up. He was fairly sure that Prof. McGonagall caught on, but then he was far from the only one who knew answers and didn't raise their hands every time, so she didn't call him out.

After lunch, and a mad dash up to the dorms to dump most of their books and pick up their forgotten cauldrons and dump their unnecessary books, it was time for the class Harry was dreading the most.

Why couldn't potions have been placed later in the week?

The entire way down to the classroom was nerve racking, too. The paintings pointed them in the right direction, which was helpful, but the discussion the boys had was... less so.

"I heard they caught him actually cooking a student alive last year, but Dumbledore covered it up." Joshua said.

"Really?" Seamus gasped.

"My brothers said it was two years ago!" Ron griped. Because, of course, that was the most important part of the rumor.

"Maybe we shouldn't go in there... potions isn't that important, is it?" Neville asked. At some point he'd turned white, and it didn't look like he was going to change colors back any time soon.

"Almost every single job, ever, requires at least an OWL in potions." Ron said.

"A teacher can't be that bad, right?" Dean asked.

"I dunno, I haven't met a single person who's willing to say something nice about him." Harry said.

"He's a professor!" Hermione butted in. While the boys were walking all in one group, the girls were mostly traveling in pairs: Parvati and Lavender were giggling behind them, while Sophie and Fay had dashed ahead at some point. Hermione was the odd one out, and rather than trying to ingratiate herself with one of the girls' pairs, she'd decided to try to insinuate themselves with them.

"So?" Harry said. "Teachers can be crap, too. And if every single student, ever, says that he's bigoted, and unfair, and grades to harshly, then maybe there's some truth to that."

"He's a professor!" Hermione repeated. "You should treat him with the authority that job entails."

"I'll treat him politely, of course, but I won't treat him like he's a god." Harry said. "You should have to earn respect, it shouldn't just be handed to you on a silver platter."

"He is the premier potioneer of this country!" Hermione snapped. The rest of the boys had fallen silent by this point, but they were still listening eagerly. Harry chose his words carefully.

"Yeah, and I respect him on that front, right? Like, if he told me that this or that potion should be brewed just or that way I'd defer to him as the authority on the matter. But that doesn't mean he's a great teacher. If you want a muggle world example, then I would rather be taught by someone who actually got a degree in education than someone who has a PhD in mathematics. I mean, of course they'd know a lot about math, but that doesn't mean they're good at conveying the information."

"But-but he's a professor!" Hermione said. The other boys groaned.

"God she's a teacher's pet!" Ron said. He'd apparently reached his snapping point much earlier than he had last time—while he'd generally taken the surprise 'well', it had left him both quieter and meaner, at least temporarily.

"Professors can make mistakes Hermione. Everyone can make mistakes." Harry said, and then they'd arrived at the classroom.

They filed in single file and by the time Snape was shouting out names, one by one, each and every Gryffindor was scribbling furiously into their notebooks (Harry had, at the last minute, warned them to write down everything Snape said "just in case.")

Then came the questions.

All three were in the first-year sections of their textbooks, though the first question he asked—about the draft of living death—was only mentioned briefly, in the forward of Magical Drafts and Potions when describing the potions that were thought to be the most useful to ever be created.

So it was a bit weird that the question that was technically the hardest was asked for, and then Snape eased up.

It was also odd that they were the same exact questions.

But there were odder things that he'd already let slide, so he focused on keeping his head down instead.

The class passed between shouts and orders, but by the end of it Harry's ingredient preparation had been marked excellent, neither Neville nor Seamus had managed to blow anyone up (the latter had, surprisingly, been able to make a small explosion last time, despite the complete lack of heat sources), and Harry's constant glancing at Hermione whenever Snape did something particularly unprofessional had left her face set in a befuddled frown.

All too soon, however, it was time for the class Harry was least looking forward to.

Professor Quirrell was just as he remembered him, just as smelly, just as stuttering, and just as possessed. And the second Harry stepped into the classroom his scar twinged.

Well, Harry wasn't going to let this slide as he had the first time. He raised his hand in the middle of Quirrell's welcome speech, and waved it furiously when the purple robed man tried to ignore the protruding appendage.

"Y-y-yes, M-mr. Potter?" Quirrell asked. Actually, now that Harry thought of it, his stuttering was probably wrong too—Harry had actually been in a class with a boy who had a stutter this time around (Grade 3, but his higher grades had put him in a different class since Year 2), and while Tyler's stuttering had certainly been bad, it had always been the same exact sounds (k, g, and t, as well as the first word of the sentence) that he had trouble with, while Quirrell's stuttering seemed to shift day to day, hour to hour, or even minute to minute. In fact, he distinctly remembered him managing to sound perfectly normal for a couple sentences last time, before abruptly beginning to flub every word.

"My head's really started to hurt. Can I go to the nurse?"

"H-h-how about y-y-you wait t-t-to s-see if it goes away f-first, Mr. Potter?" Professor Quirrell said.

There was no reason to say no, so he nodded reluctantly and let Quirrell finish his speech. The twinge in his scar disappeared—apparently his reaction had scared Riddle off.

This did, however, mean that it would be Harry's first time sitting in, fully aware, on one of Quirrell's lessons. He had, technically, attended basically every single one of them last time, but he'd... let's just say, he'd been a bit too distracted to actually take note of the class, perfect memory or not. That he'd actually noticed the stutter had been more because of an poorly thought out idea that it had in fact been the teacher's _words_ which were causing his head to hurt.

All of that meant that this was, really and truly, the first class of Quirrel's that Harry attended and paid attention to. It was... odd, actually. The information was good, if slightly tainted by a bias against non-mage dangers (Quirrel made it a point to say, over and over again, in increasingly roundabout ways, that while witches and wizards could be reasoned with, 'lesser life forms', like animals, were far more dangerous. He never once used the word human, but he did emphasize that the more magical something was, the more it could be reasoned with.)

Still, he made good points about how you should always use your environment, avoid dangerous situations when possible, and how important it was to be aware of day-to-day possible issues, like ghosts and snails (whose trails, surprisingly, could render some runes inert, destroying many enchanted objects and wards.

Regardless of which, Harry was still not looking forward to two hours of the class every Monday and Thursday and an additional hour Tuesday until he figured out how to get rid of him.

He wondered who he'd be replaced with once that happened.

The Gryffindors stampeded up the stairs to the dorm the second DADA was over, shoving past each other in an impromptu race which somehow enveloped the first-year girls as well as the boys.

All to start homework.

Something that Harry had already figured out, sometime between Years 2 and 3 at St. Grogory's, was that despite his perfect memory, despite how he'd already built on his accumulated knowledge over years, despite having had to already take some version of every single homework assignment, test, and exam he'd come across this time already, he couldn't just breeze by them.

For one, he hadn't actually done that well the first time around; for another, it wasn't as if he'd wanted to have himself labelled as a child genius. And that didn't even cover how he'd... let's call it 'fudged' many of his answers, and never really gone back and learned it the right way after.

Most of the time, of course, he was able to push through all these problems with minimum difficulty—he may have remembered glancing up as inconspicuously as possible at the tense poster on his Spanish classroom's wall the first time around, but now he had that knowledge as well as a significantly improved work ethic, so he'd managed that just fine.

But now that he was in Hogwarts?

Schools, Harry figured, were mostly exactly the same no matter where you went. Yeah, the quality of teaching differed, and how long was spent actually in the building could vary quite a bit. But generally it was all the same idea—you go somewhere, listen to someone tell you what you should know, and prove that you picked up at least some of it at a later date.

Hogwarts mostly followed this model, except for one small difference.

They didn't only test you, quiz you, grade you on just what you learned in the classroom. They also tested you on what you learned on your own.

The first day's homework, for instance, consisted of three different, reasonably short, papers: a foot each on the first chapter of the Transfiguration book and the Defense book and a foot and a half describing everything you could possibly learn about the "aroma potion", which was well known for having a startlingly large number of techniques to create a potion which was amazingly hard to accidently explode halfway through.

Given that, it had always been used as the first potion taught at Hogwarts. Which made sense and everything, except _have you ever tried to write 18 inches on seven different techniques which were only ever loosely described in the physical textbook_?

The first time around Harry had only used the textbook and one library book about techniques. He'd gotten a poor. It had taken him two months to realize that no teacher would grade above acceptable for any paper with less than three sources; Snape would only ever give an exceptional or above for something with at least five.

Harry decided to aim for six, this time around. Joshua had pulled out four library books and went to study with his brother, while Sean, Dean, and Neville were sharing four between them. Ron was only using his textbook, but a few furtive looks and passed notes ensured that all the boys knew to pass on a few simplified notes from their own books for Ron to stuff into his essay the following day—the next class wasn't until Thursday, so they could wait a bit.

The information, once he'd started to actually read it instead of just guess about the official definitions and descriptions from personal experience, wasn't actually all that bad. There were, as it turned out, reasons to julienne something instead of chiffonading it. Even mixing techniques could change the potion—stirring closer to the edge of the cauldron, as it turned out, was ideal when the majority of the cauldron should be made into a mixture. Stirring nearer to the middle was done when the ingredients were supposed to maintain some of their base integrity.

Whether or not something was stirred clockwise mattered too—the general idea was that because the earth spun counterclockwise, spinning opposite that direction had a slightly different effect on how the magic reacted to the speed than stirring widdershins. There wasn't much evidence to support this, but he supposed a possible reason was better than none at all.

But it was still so boring!

Harry had always liked acting, casting spells and thinking on the fly. Sitting in the library, reading paragraph after paragraph until they all blending together into hieroglyphics? Not his idea of a fun time.

Harry glanced up from his seat, looking two tables back and one table over. Each was built for about six people to sit comfortably at a time. That table only held one: Hermione. She'd used the extra space to her advantage, admittedly, with over a dozen books stacked and opened and propping up other books. From what he could tell from this distance most of them weren't even immediately related to any of their homework's topics either. Harry knew that she'd gotten an acceptable on her first potions, and an EE on the rest. She hadn't taken that well.

He shifted. He wanted so badly to call her over, ask if she wanted to join their review session, but he knew that'd be a bad idea. The other boys were nice, sure, but they hadn't really learned tact yet, and Hermione wasn't exactly any better at eleven.

Why couldn't he think of how to fix that? In a way which didn't involve a troll?

Dinner was a raucous affair. The whole story about Pettigrew—or at least what the students thought was the whole story—had come out. Well, except for his name, which was still an unknown, at least in Hogwarts.

But the students thought they knew enough. They knew the rat was a man, they knew that both Percy and Ron had slept with him in their bed, they knew that all of the Weasleys had brought the rat into their home, that all of Gryffindor had brought the rat into their life.

So... raucous. Which was the nice way of saying hell, right?

Fuck.

Maybe he should have spent longer planning out how to expose Pettigrew.

He probably should have done something to make sure no one would pay off someone to make sure the truth wouldn't see the light of day too.

Actually...

A half-formed plan, formed more from the noise in the Great Hall than any finite details, began to stir in his mind, and he climbed over the dining table's bench, slipping out of the Great Hall and up the first set of stairs he came across.

Five minutes later found him in the Owlery, sending off the most alert barn owl he could find. The easy, smart thing would be to send him off immediately to deal with the Pettigrew issue. But Harry, for all of his years, all of his advantages, would never be a genius. He was too sentimental for that.

And he refused to tackle Pettigrew, to tackle Quirrell, to tackle any other daunting issue without Hedwig by his side.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions/comments/concerns/ideas/edits, put them in a review and I'll try to answer/read/explain/incorporate/fix them._


	16. Chapter 15

The next day, after a nice nap during History of Magic (a droning monotone from a teacher who didn't care and was at least thirty years out of date—probably more, actually; Harry couldn't see the man making much of an effort to stay informed when he was alive), as well as a short chat with one of the Hufflepuffs at the end of class, followed by his first Charms class, it was lunch time.

Hedwig had, quite unfortunately, not come during breakfast, but he had gotten a form letter from a different owl informing him that she would arrive at the owlery by lunch and be identifiable by a red band tied around her left talon.

So when lunch finally came Harry completely ignored the mass of food waiting in the Great Hall (he knew from experience that missing a few meals was completely manageable) and instead went straight for the owlery.

He hoped they'd picked the right one. He'd written to Eeylops that he'd like a fully grown and very intelligent female snowy owl, but Hagrid had never said if she'd been the only one like that in the store. So he was almost wary by the time he actually made it to the room full of wings.

The owls were hooting and calling to each other, which made it a bit hard to concentrate, and it was impossible for him to see the entirety of the room from any angle; beams of various sizes crisscrossed at every height, which, while it gave ample room for the owls to settle in and even build nests in whatever way they liked, did make it quite difficult to see most of the owls except a select few school-own ones, who sat on a specially painted purple beam for easy recognition.

So it took him a bit of shuffling to find her.

But it was her.

 **Winged Companion Goal Completed (reobtained Hedwig) 150 XP Awarded.**

She sat towards the back of the owlery, on one of the beams that were about the height of Harry's current chest, and the red ribbon that had been tied on her left leg was almost useless as an identifier. He knew her by sight.

"Hedwig!" He shouted, rushing up to her. He immediately removed the ribbon and began carefully rub her head the way he knew she liked. She hadn't known him, of course, but that was okay. He'd make sure she was happy, and that this time she wouldn't have to go out in a blaze of glory at all.

After what Harry deemed to be a sufficient amount of petting (Hedwig wanted a bit more, his stomach a bit less), Harry quickly scribbled out a quick note for her to deliver first. He'd write the others during study hall, and hopefully have them sent out by bed.

For now, though, there was only fifteen minutes of lunch left, and he had to pick up his Herbology and Potions apparati too.

He should have asked one of the boys to make him a sandwich.

Transfiguration and Herbology passed much as it had the last time. None of his classes would actually be performing spells until the next week at the earliest, so most of the classes were just long drawn out lectures on theory and essay presentation and what you were expected to do and how you were expected to behave, which didn't exactly make attending the classes the most interesting thing in the world, but what could you do?

Regardless, Harry ended up in his dorm room by the beginning of study hall. Their first two papers—Potions and DADA—were due tomorrow, so the group had decided to split up for the first half of the two hours before dinner, then reconvene and edit each other's work. Harry had, quite selfishly, picked studying in their dorm room first, which allowed him to work on everything but his essays with no one realizing. The rest of the boys, and the girls too, he supposed, were spread between the library and common room, although Joshua had left to study with his brother in one of the many empty rooms of the castle.

It didn't take long for Harry to situate himself on his bed, and he had just inked his quill when Hedwig flew in from his window for the first time.

He grinned, "Hey girl, what have you got for me?"

Hedwig precked and presented the hastily tied parchment on her leg.

It was from Hagrid, who was perfectly happy to see Harry tonight, just as he'd hoped. He smiled, then fed Hedwig a bit of an orange he'd had left from his short lunch. Then he got started writing the next two letters he wanted her to deliver.

The first went as follows:

 _To the editor of the Daily Prophet:_

 _My name is Harry James Potter. I am currently a first year at Hogwarts, and up until July 24_ _th_ _of this year, had no contact with the magical world whatsoever. This was, as I understand it, done for my safety, however it has led to some issues I have recently been made aware of._

 _One such, that this letter intends to address, is that many witches and wizards have apparently written to me over the past ten years, but I have gotten none of the correspondence. So, I have addressed you to ask if it were possible for the Daily Prophet to publish my deepest and sincerest apologies for leaving all the mail unanswered, as well as an encouragement not to send me any more: while I appreciate your gratitude, from what I have been told it seems to have been more my parent's doing than my own, and I would like their sacrifice, rather than mine, to be the one that is recognized._

 _On another note, and I know this is a lot to ask, but I was curious if you had a recommendation as to what to do about all the books that have been written about me. Many are lies, but have proclaimed themselves as the truth, and it worries me that so many of my fellow countrymen are being lied to. It has been explained to me that you are an upstanding organization, so I hope that you may have some recommendation for me as to how to pursue this. If you do not have the time, please do not worry. I have already contacted the government to see what laws there are surrounding it._

 _Finally, yesterday within Hogwarts, within my dorm, an animagus rat was found having had resided within the school's walls for most of, from what I understand, the past five years. Since then neither the teachers nor the aurors have explained much about the situation, and I was hoping you could endeavor to find some more out about it yourself._

 _Thank you,_

 _Harry James Potter._

Harry knew it wasn't perfect—if he tried a bit harder he could probably have made it sound a little more cohesive, at least—but that was kind of the point. He didn't want it to be perfect; he wanted it to look like something a noticeably more intelligent and level-headed eleven-year-old would right. That said, he did have high hopes it would accomplish his goals.

He figured that speaking out so quickly about his ten year silence (something he'd only learned was such a big deal near the end of first year last time, but had already gotten Neville to explain this time) would help negate any of the negative feelings people had begun to have about him—a sort of preemptive defense against the future character assassinations he knew would come.

Similarly, bringing up the lying books would notify at least some people that he wasn't aware of them, and he hoped that writing both the aurors and the Daily Prophet simultaneously, while telling the latter that he'd wrote the former first, would ensure that he got at least something verging on a good plan out of their responses.

Harry had also made sure to point them in the direction of Pettigrew. From what he remembered last time Dumbledore tended to put up a bit of a moratorium on them reporting events within Hogwarts, but when they became too big to ignore (Slytherin's monster, for example), they would talk about it anyway. He hoped that the story seemed juicy enough for them to bite.

His next letter was sent straight to Amelia Bones, but he'd actually done some more preparation for this—after Binns he'd grabbed Susan's attention and loosely explained his worry about the books, and while she'd said (blushing) that she didn't know how to deal with it, she had recommended he write to her aunt, just as he'd hoped.

So it did not take him as long to figure out how to pen the second letter:

 _To Madam Bones, Head of the DMLE:_

 _My name is Harry Potter. Your niece, Susan, suggested I write to you, so I hope that's okay. I just had some legal questions, and as far as I can tell I don't have anyone else I can ask._

 _The first question is about what happened the morning after I arrived at Hogwarts. My dormmate, Ron's, pet ended up being an animagus, and the aurors came and took the person away. I was wondering if there was any way to get an update on the investigation as it continues. I know that that is sometimes hard to do while it is still ongoing (at least in the muggle world), but I'd appreciate knowing when the person gets locked up._

 _My second question is more about me specifically. As you may or may not know, I was raised entirely in the muggle world in order to keep me out of the public eye. Unfortunately, during that time a number of books about me (namely the series written by Richard Gold Tolkey) which have told blatant lies about my childhood and claimed them as the truth. Simply put, I was wondering how I should tackle that issue,_

 _I know that asking you may not be the best way to go about that, but I had to ask someone._

 _Thank you for your time and consideration,_

 _Harry Potter_

Again, not exactly perfectly written, but that was the point. Perfection was way too much to be expected of an eleven-year-old—and anyway, what he had written wasn't exactly that much worse than what he could have done at seventeen.

Harry, after one last glance through, sealed the letters and sent them off. He then spent the rest of the time until dinner finishing his homework. He really should have paid more attention last time— it would be so nice if he could just rely on his memories of having completed the homework before rather than having to rehash every single paragraph.

Still, it wasn't as if he didn't already have a massive leg up on the rest of his class. The homework which had taken him hours to finish the first time he now managed to get through in half an hour, and most of that was just trying to find the right material to cite.

The rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday went by quickly, especially given that Thursday was the first day where no new classes were introduced. Friday, however, brought Flying class.

And Flying class brought trouble.

The problem came down to selfishness. There was more to it than that, really, but it was hard for Harry to not simply boil down the issue to his desire to fly with his need to keep Neville from being hurt. Neville had been fine, of course, but it had been quite a painful fall and—

"Alright!"

And there was Instructor Hooch. As she had last time, Instructor Hooch went through a series of sharply spoken instructions, slowly bringing every child to the point where they could safely fly. Harry, who had positioned himself beside Neville, couldn't stop glancing at the other boy. (If he didn't catch the Remembrall he wouldn't be able to fly—but the only way he could catch it would be—

Or he could just try to fly well in whatever the class was supposed to be.

Admittedly, Harry had no idea if that would actually work, but it also led to nothing broken, so…

Neville's broom began to shoot up and Harry's own arm shot out, holding the broom steady in time for Instructor Hooch to rush over and get Neville off the broom.

After berating Neville loudly and school budgets under her breath for a few minutes, the class finally got back on track and Harry got to experience his first Flying class.

As it turned out, that involved nearly an hour of instructions before they were actually allowed to do more than float. After that, though, they were finally able to fly… in a carefully outlined circle. And any time Harry tried to do something interesting (fly upside down, shoot ahead, go close to the ground, see how high the broom would go…) Instructor Hooch was suddenly right beside him, ordering him to follow instructions.

Which. Was. Boring.

Flying—the rush of air, the slight lightheadedness, the feeling of control, the sheer amount of freedom—it had always been an outlet for Harry. In the air he'd always been able to ignore his problems and just live in the moment, a complete and total abandonment of his normal life which allowed him to actually relax even during times of his life where everything seemed to be going wrong.

Being dropped into a one year old body and made to relive his life?

An excellent reason to fly.

But would Instructor Hooch let him? Of course not! Because that would be "unsafe." So instead he was meant to go around and around in circles for an hour—they weren't even supposed to learn how to make sharp turns until next week!

…it was possible he was making too big a deal of this. After all, plenty of his classmates had already flown, and while there was some complaining (especially amongst the Slytherins), most seemed resigned to the slow pace of the class. In fact, with the exception of himself and Malfoy, not one student was intentionally breaking the rules.

Harry, however reluctantly, slowed to match the speed of Neville.

Maybe he'd get the right to fly next week… or next year.

Neville, on the other hand, looked as if he would have been thrilled to never get that right. His broom had been replaced with a slightly better looking one, but this one still lurched every few seconds—less a defect of the broom, then, then user error.

Forget his broom—Neville himself looked as if he was about to puke. He was completely drenched in sweat, now, and he was gripping the broom so tightly that his knuckles were completely white.

"You okay?" Harry asked.

"I… I want to get off, Harry. How much longer?" Neville said. His broom jerked again.

"Um…" Harry looked around, before shouting out to Theo Nott, who was flying a few meters in front of them and Harry'd noticed wearing a watch earlier. "Oy, Nott! You got the time?"

Nott glanced at him, but apparently saw no reason to refuse and glanced at his watch. "12:40!" He shouted back.

"Twenty more minutes, Neville, and Hooch'll probably take us down before then, too."

"I don't know if I'm going to make it. I keep on feeling like I'm about to crash, Harry."

"You're doing fine. You've already been going for over an hour!"

"Exactly!" Neville snapped. "What if I'm running out of whatever magic I have?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"I'm almost a squib, Harry, and using a broom takes magic. I'm going to fall any second, and then everyone's going to know!"

"Why don't you think you have any magic?"

"I didn't have any magical accidents as a child. Powerful wizards _always_ have dozens of them, and I had none!"

"Okay, sure, but were you tested or anything? Like, is there a way to measure how much magic someone has?"

"Um, no." Neville said. His broom stopped jerking as he slowed to think, dragging them behind the rest of the group. "I mean, you can have people try to use all of their magic, but that number's been found to vary a lot, so it's not really thought to be that accurate. Or, um, there's also using magitropic plants and things, and putting two wizards on either side and seeing which way they turn, but former Professor Beery did a study on that, and found that the plants only tended to turn to the wizard who was known to be more powerful about four fifths of the time, so you can never be certain."

"Well, sure," Harry said, "but at least it'll give you something. Were you ever tested either way."

Neville's broom jerked. "Yeah, the magitropic plants thing. I've had a couple uncles and aunts who tested me against them, and the plants didn't turn towards me once."

"Can't you do more magic the older you get?"

"Yes," Neville responded, "your reserves grow when you get older, but Harry, _they didn't turn towards me once!_ Which means they must've not known I was magical at all!"

This, Harry realized, was not an argument he was going to win any time soon. Instead he focused on keeping Neville as steady as possible until Instructor Hooch called them down, and used his study hall time to find books on testing magical power.

There was no way he was going to let Neville believe he was so weak for as long as he had the last time, especially given that just that morning he'd really been wondering whether or not a hard fall would really be so bad, just so long as he got to fly.

(Admittedly, there were more reasons than that. But a larger portion of the dilemma than he'd like to admit had been devoted solely to whether or not he'd have to wait a year to experience one of his chief pleasures.)

For now, though, he simply congratulated Neville on having stayed up for the entire time, and tried to keep Ron and Hermione from getting into a fight over whether or not flying was _really_ necessary, and whether or not saying it wasn't was "just plain rude."

Ah, Hogwarts. How Harry'd missed it.

 **First Impressions Goal Completed (have your professors assume you are good, but not top of class, based on your first class with each) (5/8 professors within target range) (1250 XP awarded)**

 **You have leveled up!**

 **Congratulations, you are now level 16.6.**

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions/comments/concerns/ideas/edits, put them in a review and I'll try to answer/read/explain/incorporate/fix them._


	17. Chapter 16

Harry's first Saturday was spent busily. He'd gotten up fairly early, just in time to meet Hedwig winging Hagrid's reply at the window, before spending the entirety of the morning playing games and running around like maniacs with many of his housemates. Interestingly, at some point in the first week Hogwarts seemed to have developed a new turret. Harry couldn't remember if he'd seen that turret before, but he did know that he hadn't actually looked at that section of the exterior on his first Saturday in his first life, so he had to keep an eye out to see if it disappeared the next day.

It was after lunch, however, where things had gotten interesting.

He'd found a book in the library by Winslow Cash, titled "Government", which was, as far as he could tell, the most comprehensive description of how the Magical British government was run. It was also one of the few books he'd seen that had even an approximation of a list of citations.

So, he'd basically decided to believe the book unless given adequate information not to.

The problem with this was that _none of it made sense!  
_

First and foremost, there was no separation of powers—there wasn't even a separation of branches, as one bled into the other without warning. The book started with how laws were formed. Now, most people would likely assume the Wizengamot, and they'd usually be right—something like 95% of all laws were passed through it. However, ~5% were just immediately put into place by one of the directors or the Minister, and a little less than 1% (that had been put into place in the past 100 years—136 now) had no officially recorded creator, but seemed to have appeared mysteriously and remained unquestioned.

The laws themselves were also weird—the Wizarding World seemed to be in the midst of a tug of war between as little regulation as possible on the grounds of self-sufficiency, and as much regulation as possible on the grounds of creating an upstanding population.

This was apparently put into place in nearly every law—Cash used an example of a law regulating the purity of certain potion ingredients, which had been passed in 1952. While the law was clearly intended to keep unintended consequences from occurring during brewing or potion consumption, much of its wording discussed how the potion's "effects on its consumer's character" was already known, and a too impure ingredient could have "a wizard or witch beginning to act as if they were a muggle or a beast."

Which was, you know, _obviously_ an excellent argument, considering it got passed.

Harry wondered if that was still true today—in the nonmagical world, at least, many acceptable behaviors and arguments from the 1950s were now frowned upon, but he didn't know if that was also true in the Wizarding World.

After the legislative process, Cash turned his writing to the next step—implementation. This, too, was incredibly spotty. The Ministry of Magic, of course, had plenty of departments, from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to the Department of Magical Games and Sports, but they weren't the only ways laws were enforced. Citizen arrests, for instance, were the only way that ~20% of all magical laws were still enforced (although, to be fair, many were out of date and hadn't been prosecuted in centuries), but even citizen arrests were quite uncommon. Many regulations, too, were followed on the "trust system", where they were only actively regulated if the business's owner had gotten into serious trouble for something else.

The best part of all of that, Cash explained, was that sometimes none of the Departments, or citizen arrests, or "trust systems" even mattered! This was a result of what would traditionally be considered the judicial system. It was important to note that the Wizengamot, legally, could judge any crime except Act 1243-72 (a), and Act 1250-13 (c), which regulated the creation of floo power and the import of magical tulips respectively. That said, there were also many smaller courts, run by three people each (one randomly chosen out of pure- or half-blood citizens, one from the Wizengamot, and one from the DMLE). This wasn't, on the whole, that bad, except for how what each of the 37 courts would judge is decided—a list of all possible categories would be put in the minister's hat, and 37 slips would be pulled out of the hat. The remaining eleven categories would not be prosecuted for the next three months, unless the Wizengamot decided they had time to.

So… yeah.

The good news was that Harry had been able to take a break from that madness in order to meet up with Hagrid. ( **First Friend completed. 150XP rewarded.)** Hagrid had, over the course of tea time, managed to slip up and admit that he had been involved in the Gringotts break in, that there was something very, very important currently being stowed in Hogwarts, that he had been the one to drop Harry off at his home, and that he performed magic despite technically not being allowed to. More importantly, however, he'd immediately taken to Harry, and by the end of the visit had told him to visit whenever he wanted.

Which made going back to learning about the Ministry of Magic… well, at least he'd gotten a break.

In other news, everyone who used any of the thirteen second floor bathrooms (so what if there had only been eleven two days before?) were now hopping wherever they went. The Weasley twins had not been seen since breakfast.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging around with as many people as possible and continuing to read as many books as he could get his hands on, but before he knew it Monday had come again.

That morning he got return letters.

The first one he opened was from the Daily Prophet's Editor, Barnabus Cuffe.

 _Mr. Harry Potter,_

 _I am so pleased that you have written to me. I am happy to know you have begun to settle in well with the Magical World, and find it unfortunate that your safety had heretofore required you remaining separate from it. I must admit that many of my writers and interviewers had tried to contact you numerous times, only to be rebuffed by unanswered letters, and it puts me in good cheer to know that it had nothing to do with any actions we had taken._

 _In this vain, I will of course heed your request to explain away your silence, and you will find your apologies written as you wrote them below the fold on the front page. I have, for your perusal, attached a free copy of today's newspaper, as well as a pre-filled annual subscription so that you may continue to read our work on a daily basis. I must tell you, however, that despite your words to the contrary, few will believe that it was not you who banished he-who-must-not-be-named. After all, Chief Warlock Dumbledore was quite clear in his speech to the Wizengamot, and he is a very powerful and intelligent wizard—he would know such things._

 _As for books written about you, I am horrified to learn of your ignorance of them. While I will admit that there are few laws involving this, I would highly suggest contacting the DMLE, as I understand you have already done, for further advice. On my end all I can promise is a recommendation for the Daily Prophet's readers to be wary of books written about your childhood, and I have included a warning to that effect on page C4 of today's paper._

 _Finally, your request about more information on the rat. I apologize, but there is currently an embargo placed on that investigation, so I am unable to tell you more about it until the newspaper itself is._

 _I hope this letter finds you well, and that my actions have been a help to you. Please feel free to write should anything more come up—I am at your disposal._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Barnabus Cuffe, Editor-in-Chief for The Daily Prophet._

 **Fickle Fame Goal Completed (figure out why you're so famous and what you can do about it) (250 XP awarded)**

 **You have leveled up!**

 **Congratulations, you are now level 17.0.**

Well… that was nice. In terms of fame, however, all he'd considered was how difficult it would be to have anyone consider Dumbledore fallible and how he'd have to make them understand he could be wrong, which wasn't exactly as easy as he'd hoped. That said, the apology letter—and the fact that it actually was a direct quote—in the newspaper was helpful, and while some of his dormmates teased him about it, the Great Hall in general seemed to be less hostile, as if an oppressive force that was so slight as to go unnoticed had been lifted—not an immense change, admittedly, but a noticeable one.

The increased level was helpful too. He now had 60 unspecified skill levels to spend, and while he wanted to avoid using them until absolutely necessary, it was nice to know that he could currently become basically fluent in a language he didn't know overnight.

As for the books about himself, while Cuffe had included a warning to his readers, it was pressed on the very bottom of the "Letters from Readers" page, which, as far as Harry was concerned, made it basically invisible. That said, at least it was on there, given that the response to the letter to Susan's aunt had proven… less helpful.

 _Mr. Potter,_

 _Greetings and well wishes from the office of the ministry. We will, of course, endeavor to answer all of your questions, but as the head of the DMLE is quite a busy women, we hope that you don't mind that this response comes directly from the minister's office._

 _Unfortunately, this letter must begin with bad news. We deeply and sincerely apologize, but it is the policy of the ministry not to discuss_ any _ongoing investigations, no matter who it is who has asked. We hope you understand that this is no slight to you, but a rule that must be followed with everyone—no exceptions._

 _That said, we may be able to brighten your day a bit with the next piece of news—the books written by Richard Gold Tolkey are entirely fictional, and were sold as such! (You may find, should you obtain a copy of any of his books yourself, an ink stamp on the last page of each book identifying it thusly.) We here at the ministry assure you that Mr. Gold Tolkey is a wonderful man who has made significant contributions for the betterment of society, and we assure you he likely meant no harm. If, however, your issues persist, we do recommend attempting to contact him personally._

 _As for any other books, should you identify them by name and send in a formal complaint with the DMLE the ministry is of course more than willing to ensure that all laws were followed in their publishing._

 _Finally, we here at the ministry truly apologize for your necessary upbringing, and hope to allow you to reenter the Wizarding World in style. To that end we proudly extend an invitation to this year's Ministerial Ball (see attached)! We do hope you can make it._

 _Wishing you a wonderful reintegration,_

 _The Office of the Ministry of Magic._

A fancy invitation to a ball taking place on December 23rd was tucked behind the letter. Harry put it, and the letters and newspaper, in his bookbag until he could decide what to do about them.

That evening, after all his classes and schoolwork had been completed, Harry turned back to the letters.

The first issue was the rat, and for that he guessed he'd just have to wait. It shouldn't have surprised him, really—while his own "trial" had been incredibly expedited in his first life, that hadn't really gone through the normal channels. While it kind of irked him—he wasn't exactly the most trusting of the Ministry of Magic, after all—he'd have to give it time before attempting to force information.

Then, the books. To say that the magical world's laws involving libel and slander were weak was an understatement—basically, as far as he could figure out, so long as the author noted that it was a fictional telling at some point in the book or only stuck to statements which had not been proven false at the time of its writing, then they were gold. While there were some exceptions, most of them seemed to involve proving that the falsehoods had cost the subject money, which Harry was fairly sure he couldn't prove. While he could—and would—try to write in to the DMLE about all the other books he had noticed, that too seemed to be at least a temporary dead end.

The apology, at least, seemed to have been fairly successful. While he had gotten much more attention than he had his last first year, which kind of sucked, Dumbledore had oddly not contacted him and a number of students (including, surprisingly, a number of Slytherins) come up to him and commend him on actually explaining what had happened. Several of them had even offered services in getting him caught up on the wizarding world, and he'd promised to get back to each of them at a later date.

Finally, the Ministerial Ball.

Harry had just outright asked Neville what to do about that one—he knew that Neville's grandmother was a part of the Wizengamot, so he figured of any of his dormmates, Neville would know the most.

"Um… I mean, I don't really know." Neville had mumbled. "I only really went the once, and… well, it's, um… it's mostly boring, I guess. Lots of people talking. I was pretty much ignored because, you know, I'm just a kid. But… well, they're kind of, kind of… they'll pick at each other's flaws, and try to tear each other down. And all of the factions are constantly trying to outdo each other… but if you aren't all that important, then it's just boring. Um, you're important though, so your experience will probably be different."

Harry decided to RSVP yes, and had written his response immediately after DADA (which was the same as last week—he gets a headache, raises his hand, and the headache goes away.)

All in all, though, Harry considered the letters to have been a letdown. The only outright good to have come out of it was the apology, and he had yet to feel its full effects.

"Hey, Harry—a bunch of us are going outside. Do you want to come with?" Dean asked.

"Sure—just let me put my stuff away." Harry said.

He, Dean, Seamus, and Ron were soon trooping outside. It was a bit of a murky day, but it wasn't actually raining, and it soon became clear why they'd decided to spontaneously go outside—there was something going on in the Forbidden Forest, and flames seemed to be shooting up at random intervals in equally random parts of the woods.

"What's going on?" Harry asked a fourth year who was standing nearby.

"Dunno—it started a couple hours ago, and hasn't stopped. Dumbledore said there was nothing to worry about, but…"

What looked like a bear suddenly shot dozens of meters into the air, roaring as it did so. It landed much closer to camp than Harry was comfortable with, and he wasn't the only one to take a step back when it did so.

"So… that's a bit worrying." Dean said.

Harry and Ron glared at him.

"I dunno." Seamus said. "I kind of like it." In Potions that morning he'd caused his first explosion, and that had apparently been enough for him to fall in love.

"Hagrid goes in there a lot—I'm going to ask him what he thinks." Harry said.

"We'll come with." Ron said, before seemingly remembering exactly where Hagrid's hut was positioned. Still, he and the other boys steeled themselves, and they made their way forward.

Hagrid, as it turned out, wasn't actually in his hut, but directly behind it, leaning half over and muttering as he rifled through a junk pile for who-knows-what.

"Hey Hagrid."

"Oh—Harry, is that you? Oh, and I see you brought some friends along. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't really have time to talk now… a bit busy, you know?"

"Does the reason have anything to do with the flying goat behind you?" Dean asked wryly.

Hagrid whipped around faster than Harry had thought possible. "There's a— oh. That's not good." Sure enough, a goat was making its way through the air, and unlike the earlier bear it did not seem to be coming down. Instead it (seemingly very unhappily) weaved its way through the fire blasts, bleating as it went.

"I didn't know there were flying goats." Ron said.

"There—there aren't. Um, run along now, boys—back inside, if you please. Nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing. Best for you to go inside, though. Plenty of things to do in there!" With that Hagrid quickly shuffled them (and any other student he saw) towards the nearest set of doors, and before long Harry found the same set closing behind him.

"Race you to the astronomy tower?" Harry asked.

"Winner must have his telescope with him, and be the first to touch the top step." Ron said. They took off.

Dean won. It shouldn't have been a surprise—only Harry was in better shape, and he had actually put his telescope away after their last astronomy lesson, unlike Dean who had only propped it at the edge of his bed.

Well, served Harry right for trying to keep organized.

Still, he'd only won by a small margin, and by the time he had his telescope pointed to the Forbidden Forest the other boys were well on their way to having set up theirs too.

"Time 'till curfew?" Harry asked. He thought he was doing fairly well keeping his concern over the unexpected events masked.

"Um… about an hour and a half," Seamus said, "and that's if we only give ourselves five minutes to get back to the common room."

"Good enough—" Ron started, but then Dean shouted—

"Look!"

The boys turned.


	18. Chapter 17

It was a _dragon_.

Or, at least, it looked like it. It wasn't any kind of dragon Harry recognized—not from books, or Hagrid, or the damned tournament. It was… weird, really. It kind of looked like a Komodo dragon that walked upright, but it had a much longer neck and what looked like an eight-pack. It also had wings, which, obviously, the Komodo dragon lacked.

It had just stood up on its hind legs less than a kilometer away from the school, and its tail thrashed between the trees. Around the beast smaller versions of it were crawling all over the place—Harry could make out one grabbing a doe and slamming it into the air with its tail.

"Ollepheist." Ron murmured.

"What?" Harry said.

"Ollepheist. They were, um, native dragons in Scotland but they were driven away centuries ago. There are a couple in a Scandinavian reserve, I know, but I thought the rest of them went extinct."

"It doesn't look very extinct." Seamus said, tracking the path of a thrown bear with his telescope.

"No. It doesn't." Dean said. His voice was very quiet

"What is it—she?—doing?" Ron asked.

"I, I don't know."

Just then the door behind them slammed open.

"—isn't picking up the floo. We've sent an owl, of course, but—what are you doing here?" Professor McGonagall said, suddenly realizing that the astrology tower wasn't as empty as she had thought. Behind her Professor Flitwick's head popped up.

"There's—there's—there's a dragon!" Dean stuttered. "Right there!"

"Don't worry." She said. "You'll be perfectly safe within castle walls. _Now get within castle walls._ " She said. The boys rushed to pack up their telescopes and get out of the woman's way, but they couldn't help but glance back up at the dragon as they did. It was silent, Harry noticed. All of the dragons he had met before couldn't shut up, but the Ollepheist hadn't made a single roar, and neither had any of her children.

"I'm waiting." Professor McGonagall said. They rushed faster.

"Why do you think it was quiet?" Harry asked as the boys stampeded down to tower stairs. Above them the door slammed shut, but that wasn't a surprise.

"What?" Seamus gasped. He hadn't taken well to the amount of running they were doing.

"Like, it wasn't roaring or anything." Harry said.

"Who cares?" Ron said. "That was so cool! I can't believe we weren't allowed to keep watching it!"

"Do you really think we're safe?" Dean asked. "Because it was _really_ close, and it looked like it was walking closer."

"We'll be fine!" Ron dismissed. "Dumbledore's here, and he's one of the most powerful wizards ever to be born!"

"Well, then why's it back?" Harry asked. This had not happened last time, and that was not a good sign.

"I dunno. Will probably be in the paper tomorrow though, so you can find out then."

They finally made it to the common room, and burst in to find most of their housemates cramming themselves against the window. Ron's twin brothers were at the very front and apparently trying to do something, because those around them were trying to get them to hurry.

"Come on, how hard can it be?" A fifth year girl snapped.

"I'd like to see you try!" Fred or George replied. "Here, did you—yes, and then—no, no we need—exactly."

"But how about—wait, I see—and how about—with the—and then—aha!" The other twin said. The two leapt back and one pulled out his wand, shooting a spell that Harry didn't catch at the window pane. The window blurred, and then suddenly the Ollepheist was right in front of them.

"What did you do?" Ron shouted.

"Well, ickle Ronnikens," Twin one started, "we found a window facing the forest and, in our infinite wisdom,"

"our unsurpassable genius," (2)

"our sheer brilliance," (1)

"we realized that we could make this window show that window!" (2)

"How?!" Asked a second year.

"With" (1)

"runes" (2)

"of course!" (1)

"You did that with only a week of classes?" Harry asked. Maybe Hermione had been right to be furious at he and Ron for not even considering the subject.

"Well," Twin two hedged.

"No." Twin one said.

"We kind of had to work ahead." Twin two finished.

" _You're smart?"_ Ron gasped. If Harry didn't know any better (and he wasn't so sure he did), he was fairly sure that this was more surprising to Ron than the dragon.

"Of course!" That was twin one.

"You didn't think our pranks were easy to do?" Twin two gasped.

"You don't get to the headmaster eight times in one year for a prank anyone could do!" Twin one whined.

"We're fantastic!" (2)

"Marvelous!" (1)

"Stupendous!" (2)

"And great!" (1)

"You don't get as good as us by doing the bear minimum!" (2)

"But you almost failed your test!" Ron said.

"Was that a unicorn?" A fourth year said. Most of the rest of the common room seemed to have decided to ignore them in favor of the happenings in the forbidden forest, but as far as Harry could tell not much had changed.

"So?" Twin one—okay, you know what? Twin one was now Fred and twin two was George. It's not like they would care if he flipped them.

"So! So! If you're so smart, why'd you fail!" Ron said.

"Have you ever tried to sit through those tests?" George said.

" _Pages_ and _pages_ of questions." Fred added.

"And boring ones too!"

"We know fifteen different potions to change hair color, you know."

"But a potion to prepare a bezoar? Forget it!"

"Unless it becomes relevant, of course."

"Of course."

"But—but—mum thinks you're failing!" Ron said. "You get punished every summer! Why would you willingly do that?"

"Silly willy Ronny." Fred said.

"If we do well mum'll try to make us work in the ministry!"

"Who would want that?"

"But—" Ron went to argue again, but Seamus interrupted.

"Not to get in the way of your family drama, but the dragon looks like its about to fly." He said. Everyone's eyes snapped to the window, and sure enough there was the Ollepheist, batting her wings with her kin clasping onto her scales.

Below her Harry could just make out flashes of light—spells aimed straight at her stomach which were apparently sufficient enough to make her decide to leave.

"It's Dumbledore!" A fourth year shouted.

"And Flitwick, and I think I see McGonagall too." A sixth year said.

"I hope they're not hurting her!" Hermione gasped.

"Who cares?" Joshua said. "Just so long as it doesn't burn us alive."

"Um, Ollepheists don't blow fire." Neville said.

"Yes," Percy said. He looked… well, a bit pale but otherwise normal, and the former may have been because of the giant beast disturbingly close to the school. "They swallow their prey alive, and are known to bat around other creatures, but they actually show an aversion to cooked meat."

Harry (and many others) stared at him. How did he know about dragons?

"Um. Charlie would talk a lot about dragons." Percy said. "I guess some of it stuck."

It took nearly an hour for the dragon to fully disappear from sight. She wasn't particularly fast for one, the dozens of comparatively tiny clones likely not helping, and for another she was just so utterly massive—nearly twice the size of the dragon Harry had fought—that it could still be seen even when most other things would have already vanished from view, particularly in the quickly darkening sky.

The next morning, just as Ron had predicted, the Daily Prophet had a small piece on it. It was an odd article, though—it didn't mention that the dragon had been spotted in the Forbidden Forest, or why it returned, just that 'sufficiently powerful wizards' were ensuring it would soon leave the island's shores.

Immediately after breakfast Harry, as well as a good number of Ravenclaws, some other students he only vaguely recognized, and Hermione, all made their way to the library and had a silent but vicious fight over who got the books. Eventually some of the older students made their own temporary copies using some Madam Pince-approved spells and disappeared to their own tables, while the first couple of years simply crowded around the physical copies of the few books which referenced dragons.

The Ollepheists had been driven away years ago by Saint Patrick, an oddly pious wizard who had decided to drive away all snakes following the actions of the several dark wizards who had tried to take control after the Romans had left. According to historical record, several of those dark wizards were parselmouths and therefore St. Patrick was venerated for preventing them from having easy minions.

But why was it back?

None of the books explained that—some mentioned the Ollepheist's peaceful behavior compared to most other dragons, others talked about how its great size should never be treated as anything but a risk, but not one considered that they may come back once St. Patrick had driven them away.

Harry stayed in the library until well after lunch, going through nearly every book he could find in the hope that the event would be explained somewhere, predicted somehow.

It wasn't.

This… wasn't a good sign. Harry had honestly been planning on relying on his knowledge of what had happened before almost entirely. If things had already changed… if even his small insular section of the world was being effected…

 **-Cause and Effect—Figure out why an Ollepheist returned to the British isles (750 XP)**

The only reason he could think of right now, though, was the reason they had initially left—he really hoped his parseltongue abilities weren't somehow the cause; that was a secret he wanted to keep hidden.

Wait.

Why was St. Patrick driving dragons away to prevent parselmouths from using them?

If he could control dragons, he'd really have liked to know that during the Twiwizard Tournament.

But then, it wasn't like he could control snakes. People thought he could, of course, and it looked like Riddle was actually capable of it, but Harry had not really managed it himself—even when he'd managed to stop the snake during dueling club that was less controlling it and more it being nice enough to listen to him; it had not seemed nearly convinced by him… Harry was fairly sure if Snape hadn't dealt with it it would have ignored Harry after another couple seconds.

He should probably test that at some point.

But… not now.

Sunday passed in a blur of dragons, and then it was Monday and the event seemed to have faded in most people's minds—it was still talked about, yes, but preparing for class and going over essays one last time and practicing spells and, well, everything _but_ the ollepheist starting to take precedence, as was usual for Hogwarts—if it wasn't an ongoing danger, then after a week or so even murder attempts stopped mattering.

Anyway, Harry had his own to-do list to get back to. The Ollepheist was important, sure, but he had another beast he needed to deal with first.


	19. Chapter 18

The next few days passed without incident. Because there was no more immediate excitement, and the professors refused to speak a word on the issue, and the newspapers only mentioned 'an incident with a large lizard'… well, it wasn't as if anyone was about to get any new information, so why talk about it at all?

Besides, Harry had a much more tangible goal to focus on: Quidditch.

In their first Flying lesson Harry had failed completely and utterly in getting onto the team. While he knew that doing so wasn't strictly necessary for any of his plans, it was _flying_! He really didn't want to have to go another year without gliding through the air.

Thankfully, this time he had a plan.

Goyle, sweet, lovable, Gregory Goyle, had handed it to him on a silver platter smack dab in the middle of potions the day before.

Harry, who was still paired up with Ron for that class, had quickly made a deal with the other Gryffindor that he'd do the potions preparation (years of practice had made him a mite better than he had been his first time) while Ron would stir and keep track of the instructions. As it turned out, when Ron had been put 'in charge' (as he seemed to view reading the instructions to be) he was actually quite intensive about it, and had even gone so far as to have convinced his brother Percy to give him a watch in the interim between Tuesday's and Thursday's class so that he could better monitor when ingredients should be added.

He still knew almost nothing about why they should be added and his homework was regularly the bare minimum that was acceptable, but that didn't stop him from already being eons ahead of where the two of them had been Harry's first year.

Anyway, Harry had just finished preparing most of the ingredients and was now flipping through his textbook to try to remember whether or not Virginian Sneeze Weed was supposed to be finely ground before or after it was lightly roasted, when something came soaring to their table from the neighboring one.

Harry snatched out his hand, grabbing the offending petal of the sensitive joint-vetch just before it reached his' and Ron's Fast Flu potion before whipping around to see who had thrown it.

It was Goyle.

Partnered with Crabbe, Snape had already stopped them no less than ten times from making an insanely stupid mistake in their brewing, and their team was the clearest evidence that for all that Snape may favor Slytherins even he had his limits. If Harry remembered correctly their pair had even been forcefully split apart before November, because Snape had said they were "more dangerous than Longbottom and Finnegan—combined!"

But for now they were still together, their potion was an off-yellow color rather than the near-teal it was supposed to be, and they were snickering at Harry's face.

 _Really_?

This hadn't happened the first time around—well, that wasn't entirely true. It had, actually, and usually at least once a week, but the ingredient throwing had started much later in the school year last time.

So why had Goyle—who he was on far better terms with—decided to start so much earlier this time?

Goyle's eye darted to Snape, who was looming over Seamus and Dean's table and telling them exactly how stupid he thought they were, then back to Harry.

"Hey, Potter." Goyle said. "Feel good about yourself?"

What? "What?"

"Was mean of you, wasn't it," Crabbe interjected, "to say that about Goyle's aunt?"

"What?"

Goyle seemed to be finished with him however, and turned back to his suddenly frothing potion.

"Goyle's aunt wrote books about you." Joshua Runcorn, who stood at the table behind Harry, whispered. "About how you must have been raised in opulent wealth and everything. Not only did your letter to the Daily Prophet say she was a liar, but the Daily Prophet also wrote that thing about how people should be wary of books written about you."

"But—but how is that my fault?" Harry whispered back. "I mean, all I did was tell the truth."

Joshua was about to reply when a looming black figure appeared behind him.

"I realize you may have gotten confused," Professor Snape drawled, "but this is Potions class, not gossip central. 10 points from Gryffindor, and any additional talking will see five points removed for every word I hear."

Both boys nodded, and the rest of the class passed in silence.

As they left, however, Gregory approached Harry again.

"Bet you think you're so good." He said. "Bet you're going to write a whole bunch of books about yourself, and getting all of the money that should be my aunt's."

Harry was developing a migraine. He hadn't been aware that Goyle's aunt had even written about him, but how did Gregory think that he was the bad guy for telling everybody the truth? "Look, I'm sorry Gregory, but—"

"You can't call be that." Goyle said. "Because we are not on friendly terms, and only people on friendly terms can call each other by first names."

"Okay, Goyle, I'm sorry that—"

"No. Apologies aren't enough. Let's duel at midnight."

Really? _Really_? And then Harry had a bit of a brainstorm. "I have a better idea." He told Gregory. "How about instead we use Flying class to play a game? Ever play keep-away?" Gregory nodded. "Okay. next Flying class pick up a rock, and if I grab it before the end of class then I win, and if not then you do. Deal?"

There, no particular risk (compared to other, much more inane, ideas that Harry had come up with to get onto the Quidditch team) and this would allow him the chance to show off his talent (he'd learned at about third year that Professor McGonagall always watched Flying lessons, so that wasn't something he had to worry about.)

That said, if the stakes were not as pointless ('losing', after all, didn't mean much of anything) then Harry would be much less eager, so he just had to hope that Goyle didn't think of changing them before he agreed.

Apparently realizing this, Malfoy suddenly jerked forward and grabbed Goyle's shoulder, but before he could say anything Goyle had already spoken. "Done. See you on the field Friday."

Harry grinned. Goyle grinned. Draco Malfoy looked very put out that he had not been involved.

The next day Goyle went up to Harry the second the Gryffindors arrived at the Quidditch pitch and showed him the stone he'd picked. It was not a stone at all, but rather a glossy black marble. "Too hard?" He taunted.

"Nope." Harry grinned. It would be hard, yes, but that'd just make it more fun.

Goyle seemed to have thought Harry would protest more. "Oh. Um… good. Well, be ready to lose." Madam Hooch's whistle blew, and every first year rushed to a broom and got into the air.

For the first hour or so Goyle played it safe. He only took the marble out of his pocket once or twice to taunt Harry, and even then only if he was too far away to reach it in time. Instead the two mostly just focused on on completing the (relatively) small 3D obstacle course that Madam Hooch had set up.

After the hour, however, Malfoy seemed to have decided he was tired of being left out. As Harry helped both Neville and Hermione (who had gone out of her way to tell him how stupid the competition was for the last twenty-four hours, and saw no reason to stop now that it was ongoing) to stay on their brooms as they navigated the course, he also kept an eye on Malfoy, who had sidled up to Goyle and was now whispering furiously to the taller boy.

As he watched, Malfoy darted away and Goyle pulled the marble out of his pocket. And threw it.

Malfoy caught it and looked at Harry triumphantly, before tossing it to Crabbe.

So the game was afoot. (Was afoot really a word? Harry'd heard it before, of course, but it didn't feel like a real world. Oh well.)

"You good?" Harry asked Neville and Hermione. Neville nodded. He was still pretty shaky, but the two and a half or so hours of practice was enough that he'd stopped _constantly_ thinking he was about to fall off. Hermione was more vocal.

"You shouldn't do it, you know." Hermione said. "You're going to get into trouble."

Harry grinned. "I'm of the firm opinion that everyone should get into trouble at least once." He said. "Might as well be now."

He took off.

As it turned out, Malfoy had gotten nearly every Slytherin on board with playing keep-away, so Harry found himself darting between Greengrass and Zabini and Bulstrode and nearly every other first year in green.

He spun, rolling under his broom as Bultrode's toss went south to land in Nott's waiting hand, only too immediately have to shoot up to get to the marble before Nott's throw landed it in Crabbe's hand. Crabbe tossed the marble to Malfoy, who sent it to Parkinson, who threw it at Davis, but Parkinson couldn't throw, and the marble went short.

Everyone watched as the marble sailed towards the ground. Davis turned her broom to get it, but her broom moved too slowly. Malfoy was bent completely flat on his broom, but he was too far away. Harry pointed his broom straight to the ground. The wind flew in his face, his goggles barely protecting him from the sheer force of it, and his hand reached out.

The marble was so small—it flew through the air with absolutely no wind resistance, and it was tiny enough that aiming for it was nearly impossible from a distance. As he neared he kept on having to readjust, swiveling his broom and his wrist ever so slightly as he got nearer, nearer. He heard shouting—that was Professor Hooch's voice, definitely—and a scream of exertion from Malfoy, but he didn't stop.

The ground got closer, closer.

Harry tried to flatten himself even more.

Another adjustment—he was nearly there—another—only an inch away—the ground was so close—time to grab it—almost—almost—almost—it was in his hand!

He immediately dragged his broom into the air. It creaked, but did as he bid, pulling him level with the earth so that only the tips of his boots got dragged through the dirt.

That was a _much_ closer call then he'd ever had before.

Harry's grin couldn't get any wider.

"Mr. Potter!" Madam Hooch screeched. Harry pulled his broom to a stop and looked down to see his boots absolutely coated in a several centimeter thick layer of mud.

"Mr. Potter, of all the irrational, inane, stupid, dangerous, I—I can't even—!"

Behind the Flying instructor Harry caught sight of Professor McGonagall rushing out of the open door of the castle.

"You—you could have died, you know that?!" Madam Hooch was saying, now. "Look at your boots! How could you—why did you—?!" She looked nearly apoplectic. Harry would have to figure out how to make it up to her, somehow; he hadn't thought of it, at the time, but it probably did look to her like she'd have to deal with a student dying or at least getting seriously injured on her watch.

"Madam Hooch—Madam Hooch, I'll take it from here." Professor McGonagall said, coming to stand next to Madam Hooch. By now the entire class had clustered around them, and Hermione had gone out of her way to position herself so he could see her I-told-you-so face.

Madam Hooch glanced at Professor McGonagall, then back at Harry.

"Fine." She snapped, before marching off to look at the huge dirt scar Harry hard carved into the field.

"Follow me, Mr. Potter." Professor McGonagall said. Harry hid his grin.

He met Oliver Wood not two minutes later, and by the end of the weekend was a proud owner of the best Nimbus on the market.

Harry spent a week flying every second he'd got in the daytime, and exploring as much of the castle as he could at night with the help of the Marauder map (he'd done so before, of course, but the castle changed constantly, so he wanted to make sure his information was as up-to-date as possible.)

By the next week, Sunday night, he'd finished all the preparation he believed necessary.

It was time to go after the Basilisk.

He set his (muggle) watch's alarm for three in the morning, giving him almost six hours of sleep under his belt (a silencing charm and a lie about wanting to study for the first DADA test the next morning assured that his early bedtime wasn't questioned.)

A quick notice-me-not charm and he was ready to go, and he carefully opened the fat lady's door, shoving a particularly recalcitrant, but nonetheless awake, cat out in front of him as he did so— if Crookshanks taught him anything, it was that cats could, in fact, get out of the dorm with significant effort, and one leaving was therefore much less suspicious than the door simply opening on its own.

Sure enough, the fat lady, while annoyed at being woken up, simply huffed when she saw the cat and settled back in to sleep with little fuss.

His next stop was the coop next to Hagrid's hut, where the liberal application of stunning charms offered him his pick off roosters.

He took all of them, just in case. The magically enlarged bag he'd brought with him became more than a little heavy, but a weak levitation charm solved some of the problem.

Moaning Myrtle was just leaving the third floor bathroom for god-knows-what reason when he snuck into the hallway, so he just waited for her to disappear through the next wall before nudging the bathroom door open.

A hiss gained him access to the Chamber, and a quick finito got rid of the sticking charm keeping his broom on his back.

Everything was going to plan. He went down.

By the time it was 3:45 he was standing in front of Slytherin's statue, trying to stay out of the way of the recently rennervated roosters as they tried to figure out where to lie down to finish their sleep.

Now the waiting game.

The thing was, when he'd planned out tackling the Basilisk however many months ago, he hadn't really taken into account boredom.

He was prepared for the adrenaline, yeah, and the anxiety and fear, but while he'd planned to wait for dawn to ensure crowing he hadn't really taken into account what to do in the interim.

He should have bought a book.


	20. Chapter 19

By the time the roosters began crowing Harry was nearly half asleep. Their sound forced him awake, however, and the second he realized where he was he raced to stand behind a pillar before whispering _"Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four."_

Behind him Harry heard the grating of stone on stone.

His heart raced. Perhaps he should have taken a second or two to prepare, but he had wanted to make sure that the roosters would crow. They'd either gone silent or began squawking when the statue moved, but as Harry heard the sound of hissing and scales against the floor several seemed to calm down.

He scrunched his eyes shut.

 _Come on come on come on…_

He could sense, though he refused to open his eyes, a disturbingly large head looming beside him.

" _Hungry…"_ The snake hissed. _"Food…"_ and then: " _Danger! Danger! Get away!"_ He felt the looming head suddenly jerk towards the entrance and the massive body begin coiling itself swiftly towards the door.

Harry crossed his fingers, becoming more and more worried as more and more of the snake passed his location, and then—

A rooster crowed.

Only one had, but one was enough. The front half of the basilisk _thumped_ heavily on the floor, scaring the roosters all over again. Had—had it worked?

Carefully, because he didn't know if the basilisk's eyes lost their power at death, Harry felt in front of him until he came across a massive scaly wall. He poked it, then pushed it, then punched it. It did not move, and no hisses could be heard.

Ha!

Ha!

Ha!

Harry couldn't stop himself from literally jumping up and down in excitement.

 _ **Bye Bye Basilisk goal completed without injury. 1000 XP awarded. Level Up!**_

 _ **Congratulations, you are now Level 18.**_

Ha!

"Take that, you stupid basilisk." Harry whispered. "See who you can hurt now!"

The roosters, apparently resettled all over again, were now chatting to each other. From the direction of the noise, Harry was fairly sure one had already managed to hop onto its conquest's body.

"Ha!"

Still with his eyes scrunched shut, Harry went about trying to make it to the entrance. In the end the basilisk's body was so great it nearly blocked the narrow passageway between the chamber and the bathroom, and Harry was forced to climb over the beast in order to make it down the path.

As he went Harry dropped bits of crumbled bread. He didn't particularly want any of the conquering roosters to die down there, but he also really didn't want to accidently catch the basilisk's eye. Thankfully, several seemed more than eager to follow the edible path, so Hagrid wouldn't be out of roosters entirely.

Finally at the entrance, well away from the basilisk's head, Harry opened his eyes. Of the twelve or so roosters he'd started with, about nine were nearby and he could hear the others coming along slowly.

He'd just managed to get all the way to the girl's bathroom, and close the door, when he realized he made a huge, huge mistake.

"Fuck!"

This. This was why he should have brought a book. If he had brought a book, or really anything else to entertain him, then he wouldn't have drifted off and forgotten to do the most important thing: _talk to the basilisk!  
_

Harry's knowledge of Riddle, for someone who had already lived 29 years and seen many other memories specifically about the man, was… lacking. More than that, it didn't look as if there were many ways to close the gap: no one would talk about Riddle, no one would write about Riddle, no one would hint about Riddle, no one would _sing_ about Riddle.

And Harry really wanted more information on the man who had successfully killed him once already.

His plan _had_ been to question the snake and see what it knew (it had, after all, apparently had quite a close relationship with snake-face, given its complete willingness to follow his directions), but that was off the table now. And to think he'd thought it had gone so well!

"Shit!"

And then he heard a wavering voice. "Hello? Are you a boy?"

"Shit!" Harry repeated, much more quietly, before yanking the bag of roosters behind him as he darted into the hall.

By the time he'd returned Hagrid's poor pets (which had taken longer than he'd hoped, considering Hagrid had already noticed they were missing and was now poking around), stopped being quasi-invisible, and made it back to the dorm the other boys were starting to get up.

Seamus grunted at him questioningly as he slipped through the door.

"Bathroom." Harry muttered, before making his way back to his bed to start getting dressed.

As Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor first years rushed down the stairs for breakfast Harry considered that he'd really made more than a few mistakes in dealing with the basilisk. Forgetting for a moment his plan to interrogate the snake, he'd also completely ignored Monday's schedule: Potions followed by Herbology followed by DADA. Herbology was fine, of course, but the other two?

"Ready for class, Harry?" Hermione asked. Ever since he'd gotten onto the Quidditch team she'd decided it was her job to keep him on the straight and narrow, going so far as to question him about his homework everyday and to refuse that he'd done it or that it could be any good if he had.

(Harry had slapped that down quick—he wasn't a lost eleven year old that needed the guiding hand anymore, and Hermione's habit of viewing herself as naturally superior to everyone else really needed to disappear far quicker than it had before. Still, even if she now knew better than to question him about his homework, he saw no use in convincing her that she didn't need to be his personal conscience.)

"A bit tired," he responded, "but I'm sure I'll do as well as usual."

"You really should put more effort into being ready for class, Harry." Hermione said. "A good night's sleep is important, you know."

Neville, looking half-asleep as usual over his bangers and mash, mumbled something.

"What?" Hermione asked.

More mumbling.

"You really must speak up. I mean—"

"Harry's doing perfectly good in Potions." Neville finally said. "You—"

"Perfectly _well_." Hermione interrupted. Neville glared.

"You just want him to behave more like you, which there's no reason for—being you works for you, Hermione, not him." Harry wanted to applaud Neville for mustering enough courage to defend his friend—that was always where he'd done best, but it was still good to see that he didn't even look scared of speaking his mind, for all that the courage quickly left him in most other circumstances.

"What do you mean by that?" Hermione said, somehow affronted.

"Oh, you know he's right." Harry said, then to lessen the blow he grinned. "Or does being you not work for you?"

"I—I mean, I—what does that even mean?!" Hermione said.

"It _means_ ," Ron grumbled from his seat beside her, "that he, unlike me, doesn't care that you're a know-it-all. Now shush."

Hermione made a face at him, but didn't react otherwise. It turned out that the acceptance of even a few of her peers had boosted her confidence enough that she could take a few comments, though she clearly didn't like the teasing and Harry had worked hard to keep Ron and his other roommates from being so oblivious to that.

"Let's delay the argument to after Potions, yeah?" Dean said.

"Yes please." Seamus said. Out of all of the boys, he looked the most awake, but that was primarily because of the blatant anxiety in his every movement. "After I accidently exploded my cauldron last week I'm fairly sure Professor Snape'll kill me if I make one more mistake, and if he doesn't my parents will: do you know how much cauldrons cost? Because I do now, and they're not cheap!"

"How much _do_ they cost?" Hermione asked.

"I converted the amount last night." Dean said. "They're about 20 to 40 pounds, depending on quality."

"And I've already gone through three!" Seamus moaned. "My parents said they're going to make me work all summer to pay it off!"

"There, there." Joshua said, patting Seamus's shoulder consolingly. "Remember: if Snape kills you then you won't have to work!"

Harry and the rest of the boys laughed. Seamus grinned. "Sounds like a plan!"

After breakfast, a dreary Potions lesson with an encouraging lack of explosions, Herbology, and lunch, the DADA test.

As usual, however, the second Harry didn't have class or meals or practice he escaped to the library. Out of all his year mates, only the Ravenclaws and Hermione spent extended time in the library, and the former saw no point in unnecessarily talking which meant he only had to deal with his one-time best friend.

Which was not to say he disliked acting with her!

Well... maybe it did.

It wasn't that she was necessarily worse than anyone else he hung out with, it was just that they were all _eleven_. Eleven year-olds were fine to deal with most of the time, but they were also exhausting. He'd had the same problem in St. Grogory's, really, but he'd been able to stave off most of the headaches by not attempting to actually make friends, only be friendly. Here he knew public image was much more important, so he found himself forced to constantly talk with Ron and Hermione and Neville and every other eleven year-old about eleven year-old problems in eleven year-old words to find eleven year-old solutions.

The library became his salvation very quickly.

And anyway, despite the lack of regulations involving published works, the sheer number was still helpful for all his other goals.

Today he'd decided to focus on finance. Money was power, after all, and he really needed to figure out how to tell how much of that power he had and what he could do with it.

(Also it was about as far away from the issue of not having spoken to the basilisk as he could get, and he really wanted to distract himself from that failure.) ( _Stupid._ )

Of course, the second he'd brought his books back to a table Hermione sat immediately opposite him.

"I've decided to get a head start on our Potions homework." She started, "you should—I mean, is there a reason you're not doing the same?"

Harry grinned. "Yep. Snape—sorry, Professor Snape—said the paper wasn't due for a week. I'll probably get started on it Wednesday or Thursday, but for now I want to learn about the magical economy."

Hermione frowned, but not in reproach. "The magical economy is different than the non-magical economy?"

"Of course it is!" Harry said. "I mean, magic changes what's possible for people to do on their own." Seeing she hadn't quite caught on, he continued: "Like, let's say you accidently lose your house key. If you lived in the muggle world, you'd have to call someone and pay them to get you into your own house, and then you'd have to pay for a new key, and maybe even a new lock entirely if your key was stolen instead of lost.

In the magical world, on the other hand, if you're locked out of your house then you just use the unlocking spell or, assuming that you have additional protections on your front door—can't see why you wouldn't—it would still likely be hard to lose, like a password. You couldn't lose a password, and even if someone else figured it out you could still use it and likely another one to change the password. The only thing you really have to worry about is forgetting it, and you basically spend all of school memorizing a password a week."

"Well, yes," Hermione agreed, "but that doesn't mean that the _economy_ works differently."

"There is also, as far as I can tell, far less regulation, international trade, and 'necessary' goods—like food and that sort of stuff, because apparently almost every witch and wizard has at least a small garden that they maintain themselves. Look, all I'm saying is it acts nothing like the muggle British one."

"Is it really relevant for an eleven year old, though?"

Harry almost laughed out loud. Hermione, arguing against knowledge?

But then, it was true that she hadn't been placed in Ravenclaw. Hermione loved learning, admittedly, but she was most into learning to _do_ things. Magic, because of how amazing it was, was automatically included in its entirety, but really Harry couldn't see Hermione diving into the economic equations determining which way of calculating GDP was most reasonable. She was into magic and knowledge that was useful, though it was true that what information was included in that group changed over time.

And for most eleven year-olds, she was right. Money in general wouldn't be particularly relevant for a good number of years.

"You are aware I am wealthy, right Hermione?" Harry asked.

She blinked.

"Remember? Famous? Everyone knows my name? People call me the next coming of Merlin after Dumbledore?"

"Harry!" Hermione gasped, aghast.

"I'm not bragging! I'm just saying—that's what they think. Anyway, I almost definitely have money and the like, and I'm pretty sure my family is rich on their own too, and I'm an orphan, so—I might as well figure out how to do all this now, right?"

"That makes sense." Hermione admitted grudgingly. "Could you—I mean, do you mind handing me your notes when you're finished? None of your reasons really apply to me, but I will have to deal with that sort of thing eventually."

"Sure."

The two then fell silent, absorbed in their books and note taking.

Finally, after hours if sweat and tears (and/or dull reading, it was definitely one of those), Harry found one of the things he was looking for.

According to the ministerial addendum to the private banking addendum of Ministry/Goblin Nation relations, if Harry filled out form 52ABX-32QJ(13), then the Goblins would be required to send him a comprehensive report on all the assets he had or could have control of in the bank at the time the form was received. Not only that, but the comprehensive report had to be sent to him within 113 hours of his owl arriving at the bank.

Not only that, but filling out the ministerial form 67B-14 granted him rights to the minutes of any trial— they could be redacted as the government wished, but they had to be sent within one week of the request.

(Harry wasn't quite clear what that had to do with goat populations within 100 meters of Goblin territory, which was the regulation it was nested under.)

Noting the books he'd found the information in (unsurprisingly, Hogwarts had a section of the library solely devoted to an extensive record of Wizarding/Goblin relations) Harry said goodbye to Hermione and dashed to the owlery.

With any luck, by the end of the week he'd have a better idea of his resources and—far more importantly—Sirius would be beginning his bid for freedom.

A very, very productive day if Harry did say so himself.

(Now if only his brain would shut up about the mistake with the basilisk.)


	21. Chapter 20

After the basilisk the days seemed to move much quicker. Every day seemed to bring new information, new challenges, and by the end of October he'd have done anything for a nap.

It began the morning after his snake killing mission.

Harry had barely managed to spoon some eggs onto his plate when a ridiculously large owl flew in carrying an even larger stack of paper held together by rope with its claws. Behind it Hedwig flew, carrying a stack of about half that size herself.

A note was stuck to it which in strict legalese assured Harry that the entirety of his financial records were in the stacks, and that they had fulfilled their end of the treaty in its entirety.

Harry stared at the mountain of papers.

Harry could not carry that many papers—it was literally taller than he was!

"What... um, what did the owls bring?" Neville asked.

"My financial records." Harry replied distractedly. He was still staring at the mountain. Was it just him or did it seem to be growing?

"Oh." Neville said.

"Couldn't you have asked for a summary?" Hermione asked.

"They're not legally bound to give out a summary, only the full records." Harry explained. He felt a headache coming on.

"Your bird's eating all your food." Seamus said.

Harry nodded.

"Mr. Potter." Someone—Percy? —said.

"Yes."

"What is—is this?"

"He ordered his financial records from the goblins." Hermione explained. "Because he didn't know anything about his financial situation, and figured he needed to learn at least who was managing it for him."

"Worked out great for you, didn't it?" Ron laughed.

"While I will never critique self-sufficiency or maturity, I do wonder why you had your _confidential_ records delivered to the middle of the great hall rather than, say, your dorm room."

"I didn't know I could have it sent there." Harry said. Careful observation had proved that the pile was not in fact growing, but that it was so tall to begin with that his brain didn't want to comprehend it.

"Well." Percy said.

Professor McGonagall arrived then and was quickly filled in. "I must say, this is a first Mr. Potter."

"It is?" Harry asked.

"Yes. I do believe that you can lay claim to being the only student in the history of Hogwarts to have a ten foot pile of paper involving personal records delivered to the middle of the great hall fifteen minutes before class starts."

"Yay." Harry said. Then he blinked. "You can help, right?"

"I daresay I can." She said, before promptly shrinking the entire thing to about a foot tall and binding it together with conjured rope. "The conjuring will disappear in about six hours, the shrinking in about a quarter of an hour later. I suggest you have the records secured before then."

"Yes, Professor."

After the classes were over for the day Harry sat in the middle of his dorm room with piles of the records surrounding him on all sides. He'd actually ended up rushing the shrunken package to his bed before the first class because it was only History, but Hermione had made sure he knew exactly how she felt about him being tardy to any class, regardless if it was the simplest in the entire school.

What that meant was when he begged help to comb through everything she had been the first to turn up her nose and say "you should've thought of needing my help _before_ you broke school rules."

Surprisingly, however, Harry did get two other volunteers Dean and Neville. Dean explained that his father was an accountant and working on 'math stuff' would likely give himself brownie points for Christmas, while Neville kept his reasons for volunteering to himself. Regardless, they were both great helps in figuring out which papers could possibly be meaningful, and which were just "nothing happened on this one very specific day" spaced out over several paragraphs.

By an hour to lights out all three boys had a headache, but Harry was beginning to get a better picture of his financial situation. His helpers had taken the time in stride, though the longer it took the more they began to threaten retribution for the sheer boredom of the day.

"Ok, first, in terms of money I'm all set. I wouldn't have to work once in my life if I didn't want to, and neither would my kids, and my grandkids if I'm extra frugal."

"Yep." Dean agreed.

"Second, I have three vaults: the main one, the trust fund one I'll use until I'm an adult, and one whose sole purpose is to collect all the stuff people send me."

Neville nodded.

"And my current manager is Dumbledore." That, at least, hadn't come as much of a surprise. Out of all of those who could've possibly acted in that position in his first life, Dumbledore was the most likely.

"That's right." Neville said. "He hasn't actually done much, though; besides using your money to pay tuition and setting up the third vault all he's done is keep you contributing to the charities your parents supported."

"There are charities in the magical world?" Dean, who had taken a break during that portion of discovery to do 'literally anything else', asked.

"Of course there are!" Neville said.

"Well how would I know that? Honestly, some of the things that the Magical world does have are fantastical, but you're also missing out on so much that us muggleborns take for granted—like pencils, for instance."

"Who am I donating to, again?" Harry asked, shuffling around the papers to try to find the right one. Actually, he was fairly sure he hadn't been told—while his long term memory was still a mess, if an incredibly detailed one, his short term memories were much more organized.

"Oh, um... there's YouthHeart, a charity that pays for young kids to get the treatment they need from St. Mongo's, First Steps, which helps people find jobs after they graduate, the campaign funds for Dumbledore, my gran, and the Abbots, and something called the Order of the Phoenix, though I don't know what that's a charity for. You don't donate much to any of them, though. I think it's mostly just to keep your name relevant to the charities themselves."

 _ **Personal Finance completed! 500 XP awarded.**_

"That's... that's fine, I suppose." Harry said. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Thanks for your help, mates. I'll get chocolate frogs for the both of you as soon as I can." The boys, appeased by Harry's offering, grunted agreement and stumbled off.

Harry began carefully putting everything away.

The good news, he thought, was that financially he was actually far better off than he'd originally thought. He'd known he was wealthy, of course, but for various reasons he'd never actually been able to quantify the extent during his first life. Neville and Dean had actually both been great helps there—Neville being very familiar with the magical economy and Dean knowing the exchange rates between muggle and magical money.

The bad news was that not only was Dumbledore intentionally donating to himself and the order of the phoenix (which Harry supposed could be excused, given the whole Voldemort-is-not-really-dead thing), but he'd also made absolutely no attempt to get into contact with Harry over his finances.

Harry... wasn't sure what to do about that, actually. Dumbledore hadn't always acted in the interest of Harry's welfare, but the man had also done a good many things to help him. Even more oddly, Dumbledore had yet to pay him any notice, despite Harry doing things like sneaking around in the middle of the night and getting giant piles of financial records which _directly mention_ Dumbledore delivered to him during breakfast.

There was no point in trying to figure out what to do now, Harry finally decided. He'd make his decision tomorrow, or preferably the decision would be made for him by the Headmaster finally deigning to meet him for the first time (this time.)

Oh. That was a thought. What if this Dumbledore had been sent back as well? After some consideration, however, Harry had to dismiss the idea. His own goals were too alike what Dumbledore's likely would have been, and besides it was not as if the "new management" had sent all that many people back. No, it was far more likely that none were in magical Britain besides him, no matter how helpful they would have been.

The next day Harry got lost. Before he got lost he'd had breakfast, gone to class, had lunch, gone to class, and debated whether or not to contact Dumbledore over the whole finances thing before deciding not to until he had at least some kind of usable occlumency (which wasn't exactly going well, but whatever.) It was only after that that he'd... well, that he'd gotten lost.

It wasn't his fault, really—the castle changed every day! How was he supposed to know that the entirety of the fourth and fifth floors seemed to have switched places overnight and the tower whose entrance had when he'd walked up it been on the eighth floor north side of the tower but upon his leaving had clearly relocated to the seventh floor of the castle on, if the windows were right, the western side?

He didn't even know if he'd been to this part of the castle before! The painting of the dancing trolls seemed somewhat familiar, but he couldn't quite remember why, and none of the neighboring corridors seemed familiar at all.

Well, at least he'd finished all his classes for the day. He hated Wednesday classes—the double period of Charms was fine, but the double period of History before it was just miserable especially because there'd been a double period of history the day before too. Transfiguration and Herbology were not a problem, of course, but they weren't doubles and they were after lunch which was always less of a headache.

Still, his decision to go exploring directly after class (something, he didn't know what, told him that figuring out the rest of the castle was important) wasn't turning out to be the best idea. It was half past six already and he still had to get dinner before astronomy lessons began.

Harry tried a door and found an empty room. He tried another and found an empty room. A third—empty room. Fourth—empty. Fifth—empty. Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth—empty. Tenth? Well, there was an odd number of teacups in the room, but it was otherwise empty.

It was the 29th door, in the end, which lead to a staircase which brought him all the way down to the kitchens where he nipped a bite to eat then raced back to the dorms so that he could get his books in time for astronomy.

"You're late." Hermione pointed out when he'd finally finished racing up the stairs of the astronomy tower. "And you weren't at dinner."

"Sorry, got lost and ended up eating in the kitchens. By the way, if you're ever in need of teapots I've a good idea of where to find some."

Hermione sniffed. "How did you even get lost? We've been here long enough now that you should already know where everywhere is."

"Well, sure," Harry said, adjusting his telescope as per Professor Aurora's written instructions, "but only for classes and the library and stuff. There's an entire castle here, with dozens of rooms, and I'm a curious boy."

"It doesn't sound like you found anything interesting." Hermione said.

"Not yet, no, but that doesn't mean I never will." Harry rebutted. She was right, though—he had plenty of other goals he had to get to, and yet for some reason he'd found himself regularly wandering through stone hallways at least three or four times a week. What exactly was he looking for?

On Thursday, therefore, Harry decided to refocus on his goals: it was time to take on the library. Harry already knew that most of what he was interested couldn't be found in the most well-perused parts of the library, but Hogwarts was also the largest library in Europe (or at least was claimed to be.)

So Harry went exploring _again_ , but this time he had a tag along.

"But _what_ are you looking for?" Hermione whined, following after him irritably as he poked around a stack of books which seemed to be focused on porcine spells, which was a surprisingly well studied subset.

"What aren't I looking for?" Harry said. "Magic is wonderful, Hermione. It is amazing and, based on what I've already learned, nearly limitless. What if there's a spell that gives you instantaneous fluency in a language? What if there's a device which lets you go forward or back in time? What are the other cultures of the magical world like? What have they learned? What have we learned? Don't these questions interest you?"

"...yes." Hermione said. "I just—I guess I didn't expect _you_ to... to be interested in it, yourself. I know, I know you get good grades on your papers and everything, but you don't really seem... bookish."

"I'm not really." Harry admitted. "I mean, I've been good at school since Year One, more or less, but... I'm not truly all that interested in knowledge for knowledge's sake. I mean, right now that's exactly what I'm looking for, but that's only because I figure I don't know what'll be useful yet. If something _is_ obviously useful, then that's what I'll focus on."

"Useful for what?" Hermione said.

Harry thought back to his goal list. "For life, I suppose. For making the world a better place."

"But all knowledge is good for that!"

Harry gave Hermione a look, but it seemed as if she was serious. "Not... not that I'm disagreeing, necessarily, but I suppose you could say that there's a gradient of usefulness. Basic arithmetic is at one end, for instance, while knowing why wombat poop is shaped like cubes is on the other. Not that knowing it is definitely completely useless—who knows, maybe it'll help with some kind of innovation or something—but the people who know enough other stuff use of the knowledge are few, and what benefit that knowledge may get you could be even less."

"Wombats poop cubes?" Hermione asked.

"Yes." Harry said, and then he noticed a book. "Wait—aha!"

The book was titled "Relations Between Magical Britain and Other Countries." Harry and Hermione both stared at it, and the latter clearly wanted to snatch it out of the former's hands: for all that her understanding of varying levels of usefulness wasn't innate, even she could see that this book would likely be a better read then a book on how to make a pig fly (there were three of those, actually—and that was only counting the ones whose titles specifically referenced it.)

"You count this as useful, then?"

"Yep!" Harry said. "I'm not an isolationist, myself. At least, not based on my current knowledge. Best to learn why magical Britain as a whole is, though."

"Can I read it with you?" Hermione asked.

Harry thought about it. To some extent it might be better to just lend her the book after he'd finished, but at the same time... maybe if he showed her how he analyzed books, she'd never end up thinking authors like Lockhart really did fart rainbows. "Sure. Let's snag some seats, okay?"


	22. Chapter 21

The book was surprisingly well written given the irregular quality of the magical book industry in general.

It began with a brief overview of how the Ministry of Magic had come to be; its rule encompassed the whole of Great Britain, as well as Ireland and many of the islands surrounding, and it had been officially founded in 1707, though it had worked in some form since the early 1500s. The first governing body had been named "The Government of His Legacy", actually, an allusion to how the founders felt their fealty went to the memory of Merlin rather than any muggle ruler. This only changed when a deal was made (the details left unexplained) and the current Ministry was formed under the muggle Monarch's nominal rule.

The entirety of this information was summarized as if it would be common knowledge to the reader. Given that Harry was only vaguely aware of some of what was mentioned (Binns, as well as being inordinately focused on Goblins, also had a love affair with the late 1700s to the point that the two topics were all Harry could remember the ghost speaking of), Harry felt as if the author should've spent far more time on it, but then it wasn't as if it was the books focus.

The rest of the book tackled magical Europe, with only brief paragraphs about the rest of the world at the end of the book (magical Asia was elitist, magical Africa labeled underdeveloped, and magical America not mentioned at all.)

Nonetheless he, and Hermione beside him, dove in and learned about what information the book did have to offer. The magical continent, the two readers quickly learned, held absolutely no resemblance to its non-magical counterpart.

There were only seven countries, for one; Magical Britain, Magical France, Hiberia, the Norse Confederation, the Eternal Empire (also known as the Magical Mediterranean Alliance), Macedonia, and the Magical Mitteleuropa (which had functionally fallen apart following the war on Grindlewald, but was still treated as a single entity at the time that the book was written while its magical population tried to figure out what the hell to do.)

No country had the same system of government, either—Magical Britain's was based around the Wizengamot and held more than a few similarities to the British Parliament, while Magical France's was more reflective of its nonmagical pre-Napoleon age.

Hiberia was oddly communist, while the Norse Confederation was just that—a confederation which only acted in lock step on international issues. The Eternal Empire was comparatively a federal system, and Macedonia was run as a merchant republic.

Mitteleuropa had been moving towards democracy prior to Grindlewald, but had obviously gotten a bit side tracked.

Most importantly, each and every country agreed on one thing: the largest threat to their continued existence wasn't each other, or even nonmagicals. It was dark lords.

Dark lords, the book explained, had been what had destroyed nearly every former country in history. Even those they didn't destroy they ruined—the Eternal Empire had dominated magical progress for centuries until one too many dark lords made the country slip into obscurity. Hiberia, too, had once been quite strong, as had every other European country at one time or another. Mitteleuropa had, at the time of the book's writing, been the latest to fall to the trend, but Harry knew better.

If he didn't succeed Magical Britain wouldn't last another decade.

"That's... odd." Hermione said, flipping through the book again.

"What?" Harry asked. Yeah, the information hadn't been what he was expecting, but he hadn't noticed any huge issues.

"It's just... well, it defines dark lords as magical folk so powerful as to force their decisions onto others."

Harry thought of Voldemort. "Seems to fit to me."

"I mean, yes, but... it also fits people who aren't dark lords." Then, before Harry could respond— "I don't mean that forcing people to do what you want them to do is good. I just... I mean, Merlin was incredibly powerful, and he used that power to force changes. I'm not saying that those changes weren't good in and of themselves, but..."

Harry... hadn't thought of that. "Dumbledore too, actually." He said after a few seconds. "He's the leader or just about of basically everything important in magical Britain, and based on the way people talk about him he could get things done—" Harry snapped his fingers. "Like that. Though, I don't know if he has done it."

Hermione looked distraught. "But he has! Not for most things, admittedly. But after the Grindelwald War it was he who made sure Grindelwald wasn't killed, only locked up for the rest of his life, and all the books outright admit that his word was enough to determine a lot of the punishments carried out against You-Know-Who's followers!"

"But no one thinks Dumbledore's a dark lord." Harry pointed out. "Merlin either."

"No," Hermione said, "but by... Smith's definition, they'd both count."

"So are they? Or is the definition wrong?" Harry asked.

"The definition must be wrong!" Hermione said. "There is no way—I mean, really. Dumbledore's done so much good, it's just that—that—"

"That the author's wrong?"

"That the author's definition is _incomplete_." Hermione said. "It needs to have something about, about outcomes or—or following correct judicial procedure, or something."

Harry frowned. It wasn't as if a sham trial was much better than none at all, in his experience, unless you had someone like Dumbledore on your side. And as for outcomes... well, how would you determine those before something even started? Voldemort—and Grindelwald too, for that matter—seemed pretty damn certain their morals were the right ones, and for all that he vehemently disagreed there did seem to be a disturbingly large section of the wizarding world that didn't. "Who determines that? I mean, about whether the outcomes are going to be good or bad?"

"There's nothing to determine, is there?" Hermione said. "It's clear enough."

"I—" The bell rang; dinner time.

"Oh, is it that late already? I'd meant to finish one of my essays!" Hermione said, racing to pack up all of her things. "Maybe if I eat quickly enough I'll have time to get a good head start on it before lights out." Before Harry even had time to collect his own things and dump the book in the return tray she'd dashed off.

Harry followed reluctantly along. As near as he could figure (Hermione's certainty of overarching morality notwithstanding), all that determined whether or not you were a dark lord was whether you won. After all, no dark lord in history had actually managed to accomplish their goals, while the Dumbledores and Merlins of the world at least managed to make some notable headway in parts of their agendas.

He was overthinking this, Harry finally decided during dinner, and it wasn't as if it was particularly relevant anyway. He pushed the topic out of his mind and instead began badgering Neville to join him, Dean, and Seamus in a game of footie before bed (Ron had categorically refused already, and Joshua was going to go hang out with his brother.)

Three days later Harry woke up at two am.

It was Halloween.

Harry... Harry really, really, really didn't like Halloween. Honestly, even his pre-Hogwarts holidays hadn't been great: he'd spent most of them locked in the cupboard the first time, and while he was allowed out the second Dudley wasn't allowed to go trick-or-treating (likely so they didn't have to explain why they let their son but not their nephew) so the day was marked by one tantrum after another and Harry and Aunt Petunia working overtime to give anything to Dudley to make him Shut Up.

So.

Not a good holiday.

And, of course, now he had to go through another one.

He still hadn't come up with a plan to deal with Professor Quirrell—Harry had never quite been able to understand the man enough to predict his actions if Harry changed something, much less stop them—which meant that in a few hours there would almost definitely be a troll running around the school.

Well, more than a few hours—it was two am.

Harry grimaced at the ceiling. He'd come up with a game plan weeks ago, of course; he'd do his best to make sure no one left the Great Hall (he still had no idea why they had last time) and make sure none of his friends wandered off before the feast besides, but...

But nothing, Harry told his brain. It was two am, and he was going back to sleep.

Several hours later, as the boys in the dorm began to struggle out of bed and down to breakfast, Neville blinked at Harry.

"You okay mate?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You look... not okay."

Of course he did, Harry thought irritably. Wouldn't you if you'd been staring at the ceiling for hours? "It's just... the date, you know?"

"What—oh. Oh. Um, I'm... oh." Neville said, flushing in embarrassment. Harry felt kind of bad about that, actually. Most people tended to forget that his parents had died on Halloween, and to be perfectly honest the date had gone so long without meaning for Harry that even he put little emotional value in it. But it was, at the end of the day, a bit of an asshole move for the entire day to be a celebration with no thought of the lives lost of not only his parents, but also everyone else who'd fought and died leading up to the date a decade before. So Harry felt kind of justified, honestly.

"It's fine." Harry said. "You know, I didn't even know when they died until this summer?" That was true, actually. Aunt Petunia had known they'd died in October (the note had apparently made that clear), but she'd never actually been told the specific date.

Neville stared at him. "You didn't know?!" Now the rest of the boys (who had been pretending not to listen in while they struggled with their ties) were staring too.

"Nope." Harry said. "Honestly, I don't even know how to commemorate the date, you know? I've never mourned anyone before, and I feel like I should mourn them, but I don't know how." This was also true. Harry liked telling the truth—it was far more freeing then lying, even by omission.

"That's honestly really sad." Joshua said.

"We'll have to do something." Dean mumbled. "Can't just... let it go unnoticed, you know? Hey, are there any magical grieving practices?"

"What do you mean?" Ron asked. The boys glanced at each other and, assured that everyone had everything, began stampeding down the stairs.

"Like... my family visits my grandmother's grave on the anniversary of her death and on her birthday, right, and obviously can't do that because he's _here_ , but is there anything else he can do? Like, light a candle or something?"

"Why would he light a candle?" Ron said.

"I can't think of anything." Joshua said.

"Mine, um, my mother's side, I mean, plants trees in honor of the dead and you're supposed to visit the, the copse to mourn." Neville said.

"Can't do that either, can he?" Seamus snarked.

"No, I can't." Harry said slowly. "But maybe I could plant something today or something. Make a new tradition, you know?"

"We can leave lunch early." Neville said. "We've got Herbology right after, so we know where Professor Sprout is, and she's really nice—she probably has some seeds or something."

Harry nodded, then moved to ask Ron if he'd finished Quirrell's essay (Harry was fairly sure the man/men just assigned random grades, so it wasn't as if it mattered, but it was time for a change of topic) when he heard a shout.

"Potter!"

"What's up, Malfoy?" Harry said. He was a bit confused; since the flying incident the boy had avoided him entirely.

"Want to sit with us for breakfast?"

Harry blinked. His neighboring Gryffindors gaped. The Slytherins looked just as surprised, for all that they put much more effort into hiding it. Malfoy... looked sincere.

"Um, not today, but I'll hang out with you tomorrow, okay?" He said.

Malfoy nodded. "That would be acceptable. See you then; well, actually, see you in Potions at eleven."

He and his goons made their way back to the Slytherin table, apparently uncaring of the stares their actions had garnered.

"Why'd you agree to eat with a snake?" Ron snapped.

"No reason not to, is there?" Harry said.

Ron looked as if he was about to say something else, but before he could Joshua had grabbed a roll and stuffed it in his mouth. "It's too early to start a fight, and Harry doesn't exactly look ready to deal with it." He said. Ron glanced at Harry, then agreed.

Harry hid a wince—he really should have checked a mirror in the dorm before coming down, if his countenance was that awful. Oh well, too late for that and he wasn't going to be using any of the other restrooms today, so he'd have to live with it.

After breakfast came Defense which was surprisingly bearable (he wondered if Quirrell was attempting to save his strength), then Potions (Snape did not have the same motivation.) Following a quick meal Harry and Neville trekked down to the greenhouses as agreed.

"Professor Sprout?" Neville called, taking the lead.

"Oh!" She said, hopping up from a stool where she'd been taking her own meal. "I hadn't expected anyone to arrive this early."

"Yes, sorry about that. It's just, um..."

"I found out that today was the anniversary of my parents' death this summer." Harry explained. "The other boys suggested I do something to commemorate it, so I've decided to plant something in honor of them. Do you have any recommendations?"

To her credit, Professor Sprout did not let an ounce of pity wipe her features. Instead she shuffled over to one of the huge cabinets that doubled as planter-pedestals and shuffled through the drawers.

"I've got some Lavender here, which should be planted in the fall. It's a pretty little flower, and is a lovely ingredient to use in calming, relaxing, and sleeping potions. Good scent, too. How's that? I'd prefer you not to plant something overtly magical until third year, mind."

"That sounds good." Harry said.

She grabbed the packets, and the three of them made their way to a disused corner of the greenhouse, where she whipped together the necessary planter, dirt, fertilizer, and seeds in a matter of seconds.

"Alright, so the first thing you will want to do is..."

By the time the rest of the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs had arrived the seeds had been made as comfortable as possible and Harry found himself unexpectedly calmer than he had been at lunch.

"How'd it go?" Ron whispered.

"Good." Harry whispered back. "Really good, actually."

Of course, after Herbology and Charms came dinner.

And with dinner came a garlicky man in purple robes, bursting in less than fifteen minutes in and shouting "Troll!" before fainting. So that kind of got rid of Harry's serenity.


	23. Chapter 22

Following Quirrell's absolutely award winning, not-at-all problematic acting and Dumbledore's near immediate "oh, let's send half the kids to their death!" announcement, Harry wasted no time in practically leaping to where Percy was beginning to corral the first years.

"Percy! Aren't the Hufflepuff and Slytherin dorms in the dungeon?" He yelled.

Percy blinked at him, then looked around to find both the Hufflepuff and Slytherin prefects looking decidedly confused and worried as they shepherded their houses into lines. "I... yes. Follow Mindy, okay?" He said, referring to his partner prefect before dashing off.

Harry itched to wait—he wanted to make sure everyone was out of danger—but at the end of the day there was little he could do that the professors couldn't. For all he knew the troll would pick a completely different random direction to wander off this time, and given the average troll's level of intelligence it wasn't a bad guess. Not only that, but he knew Hermione and the rest of those he could immediately recognize had been in the Great Hall.

He hesitated a moment more—he felt compelled to do something, though he had no idea what—when the professors began calling everybody back into the hall and Dumbledore's voice rang out again.

"My previous command was perhaps a bit premature, and students shall remain in the Great Hall until we return. I implore the prefects to do a head count and report any missing students to professor Vector, who will be staying behind, and the ghosts to scout out the entirety of the school to attempt to find any wandering students as well as the troll itself. You have my sincerest apologies for forcing you to get up from your delicious meals, and I assure you that you can get back to them at this time."

Well.

That was a better response than last time, and on top of that his question of what to do had been handily solved too.

He sat.

All the professor but Vector (who stood in the center of the hall and tried to restore order as much as was possible), Filch (who had grabbed up his cat and moved to the corner of the room furthest away from the doors and students) and professor Trelawny (who was screaming out about omens in the corner of the room and ignoring Filch' and Vector's glares), had gone in search of the troll, and that left little else to do.

Which was... good.

Really.

Its just that he wasn't quite used to sitting back and doing nothing when something had to be done.

Of course, every time he'd jumped in despite being told it wasn't his business it tended to end in a situation that was better off than if he'd done nothing. Sirius's death was really the sole exception to that, and even that was more due to the actions of Kreacher and Snape than him—he'd done what had historically been best given the information he was provided, and Sirius had died because Snape in particular couldn't be bothered to see Harry as anything other than a worthless carbon copy of his father.

Anyway, the point was that Harry was anxious.

Very anxious.

Very, very, very anxious.

"Would you stop jiggling your knee?" Hermione snapped from her seat across from him. "It's really annoying."

"Oh." Harry said. He looked down to find out that yes, in fact, his knee had been bumping up and down and even jarring the table a bit. "Sorry, it's just—I'm worried, you know. The troll and all that."

"That's all well and good," Hermione said, "but you really must think about people other than yourself. Your actions are making the rest of us more nervous too."

"Sorry." Harry repeated, unwilling to get into an argument for all that he felt her assessment of the situation was a bit unsympathetic.

"It's fine, Harry." Ron said. "We're all freaking out."

"Yeah." Joshua agreed. "Hermione's just being snitty."

Hermione huffed. "Well, you were making _me_ more nervous, anyway."

"Leave off him!" Ron snapped.

"Mind your own business." Seamus added. "It's what the rest of us were doing."

"It's fine." Harry said. "I mean, Hermione wasn't being particularly nice about it, but I didn't even know my leg was jiggling—it wasn't any problem for me to stop it once I was told."

"She was still rude about it." Ron muttered.

Hermione looked nearly mutinous, now. "Telling others to follow common decency is never rude!"

"Common decency," Harry said, "would probably also include not making light of others' feelings—like you did mine—just as I stopped jiggling my knee as an acknowledgement that doing that made you more anxious."

Hermione opened her mouth to respond—how, Harry didn't know—but before she could Neville spoke up.

"I... I don't feel so good." He said, looking sickly-pale.

"You don't look so good either." Dean said. Lavender leaned across him and held the back of her hand against Neville's forehead.

"He's not hot, but he's really clammy."

"Which professor should we call over?" Seamus asked.

"Vector." They all replied as one. They'd never spoken to the Arithmancy teacher, of course, but then Filch was Filch and everyone knew Professor Trelawny's reputation, so that really only left on option.

"I'll get her." Joshua said, climbing over the bench to get to the Great Hall doors where Professor Vector and Filch were talking.

"Do you want to put your head down?" Hermione said, her anger forgotten. "I think that's supposed to help."

"Can't hurt." Harry said. "Here, drink something first though."

Neville gratefully accepted the glass of water, then put his head down as recommended. As he did so Joshua and Professor Vector began making their way over.

"—probably just nerves," the Professor was saying, "but you were right to get me anyway, in case it's something more serious." 

Then she caught sight of Neville.

"...or not. Neville, are you okay?"

They were beginning to draw attention, now. People were looking at them and snickering, snickering like they had when Draco had made fun of him for fainting following his first (and second) meeting with the dementors.

He had to stop this, had to do something to make sure what happened to him didn't happen to Neville or any other child, any other person too young to easily cope with the humiliation, and anger, and hopelessness of the kind of bullying he had been exposed to.

"I don't think it's just the troll." Harry told her, making sure to have his voice carry more than he usually bothered with. "I mean, he was worried but fine just a few minutes ago."

Professor Vector frowned. "Do any of you have some parchment? I need to contact Healer Pomphrey."

"Here." Percy said, handing a piece of parchment over to her. She quickly conjured a quill and some ink and scratched out a note, after which she sent a spell at one of the windows to open it and sent the newly created paper airplane through.

"Keep your head down, okay Neville? Healer Pomphrey will be here soon. What other symptoms do you have?" She asked.

"...stomachache." Neville forced out. "Getting worse."

The Professor muttered something under her breath, but Harry couldn't hear what.

"Alright, well, just stay calm, okay?" She said. It was clear to all that she was worried, and the looks of those around them had finally changed from mildly amused to worried.

"Professor! Professor!" Someone shouted from the Hufflepuff table. She shot up, turning to a group of girls crowded around a sickly looking third year, but before she could even take a step in the right direction someone else shouted for her from the Ravenclaw table, then Slytherin, then a Gryffindor girl leapt out of her chair to curl in a ball on the floor.

Professor Vector looked around wildly, seeming to be about as lost as Harry felt.

"Okay," she said, "if you are next to someone who is sick I want you to raise your hands."

Nearly everyone's hands rose. Those that didn't, after a few seconds, began to rise in small clusters too.

This time Professor Vector didn't even bother lowering her voice—instead she cursed audibly.

Then the Great Hall doors banged open.

"We have successfully—" Dumbledore started.

Then he paused.

"Oh dear."

Seconds later Healer Pomphrey was shoving her way through the newly arrived cluster of professors, shouting as she did so. "Make way! Make way! Get out of my way!"

Professor Vector snapped to attention. "We've got dozens of kids sick already. I don't think it's just nervousness from the troll. Neville here's the first one to get sick—he has a stomachache."

Healer Pomphrey wasted no time in all but attacking Neville with spells, one after the other flashing out of her wand as weird symbols began to appear above the queasy boy.

"Get him to my office, now. Every other sick child too. And you, Headmaster." She whipped around, staring at the man with two gimlet eyes. "I told you this would happen. I'll be taking no instructions from you, sir, until you personally apologize to me and to every other child who you've needlessly endangered. Get me some help from St. Mungo's immediately."

Shooting Neville with one last spell—levitation, it seemed—she marched out of the Hall, a pale looking Neville floating quietly behind.

As one, the entire room turned to the Headmaster.

"I think," he said, "it is time for all of you to get some rest after this most wearying day. If you are feeling ill then you should, of course, make your way to our lovely Healer's office. If not I hope to see you bright and early for classes tomorrow. Dismissed."

Harry frowned, then clenched his fists as around him the other students, however reluctant, began to follow the man's instructions and blatantly ignore the comments made by Pomphrey.

What was wrong with this world? That—that—that wasn't something you just ignored! It was something you poked and prodded and picked at until Dumbledore finally admitted what he had done wrong. It was something that you personally determined whether or not you were okay with, whether or not it was forgiveable, and what should be done about it going forward.

This wasn't even rug-sweeping! This was just plain ignoring, refusing to acknowledge what had happened—what had happened—before everyone's very eyes.

He grit his teeth, trying to think of what to do as Seamus and Joshua yanked him from the table and forced him in line with them, apparently getting the message that he wasn't entirely in the mood to chat.

But what could he do? 

Unlike with the troll, where he could sit back because other people were on it and could do it much more safely than he, this time it was clear that no one else (at least in the immediate) was going to bother, and if he tried to make trouble about it he really couldn't see any good way it would end.

But it wasn't exactly like there was anything else—

Harry's hands unclenched.

Oh.

Well, you know what they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and Harry had just the enemy in mind.

Harry grinned. It was always nice to have a plan.

 **Troll! Troll in the Dungeons! Goal Completed (keep the troll from endangering anyone) (750 XP awarded)**

 **You have leveled up!**

 **Congratulations, you are now level 19.25.**

That was nice too.


	24. Chapter 23

By the next morning nothing had changed, so Harry got to work. He first had Ron send off a letter to his own parents, and Joshua to owl Neville's grandmother about what was happening too. Before breakfast he also dropped by the clinic, but the door was locked.

Then came time for the morning meal.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked when he turned away from the red and gold ties.

"I'm eating lunch with Draco today, remember?"

"After what happened last night?!"

"Yes?" Harry said. "Why would that change who I'm having breakfast with?"

"He's—he's—" Her voice dropped several decibels. "What if he's involved?"

Harry stared at her. "He's eleven." Was this really what he thought when he was her age?

"But he's a—you know—a Slytherin. And," she added, seeing his face, "a bully."

That was very hard to argue with.

"Okay, sure, but if no one ever talks to him but other bullies then how is he supposed to learn? Look, he's nicer than he acts, I know it, and he's the one who reached out, so..."

Hermione huffed.

The other first years milled around them, waiting for the end of the argument—none of the other girls cared enough, and the boys had long since realized that Harry could rarely be dissuaded from doing anything.

"Fine." Hermione snapped. "But influence goes two ways, you know? I hope you don't end up a worse person just because you have it in your head that someone who speaks and acts like he does is redeemable."

Harry grinned. "Never." He'd seen the failings of _that_ particular belief system too often to fall into it himself.

Draco, it seemed, had been watching the confrontation between Harry and Hermione, because he had a look in his eyes like he didn't quite know what to think when Harry plopped himself opposite him and between Tracey Davis and Vincent.

"Sup." Harry said.

Draco grimaced.

"Hello, Potter."

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I'd like to... apologize on behalf of my associate Gregory Goyle for the way he treated you following your article in the Daily Prophet." Draco deliberately ignored that his so-called associate was sitting right beside him and clearly expected Harry to too, likely some combination of traditional pureblood etiquette and unavoidable Malfoy snobbery.

Harry honestly, truly, could care less about both those things, but he also knew that if he wanted to go more of a political rather than a risk-his-life-every-damn-minute-of-every-damn-day route then he'd have to tread carefully, so for now he followed Draco's lead.

"I am always willing to forgive an honest misunderstanding." He said instead.

"I am happy to hear it." Draco said. A few seats down a girl—Daphne?—got up and walked towards the upperclassmen. Harry watched her in his periphery but made sure to keep his eyes on Draco; it was clear that something was happening beneath the surface in Slytherin, and the more information he could get on it while appearing the right combination of oblivious, useful, and adept the better.

"I do have something else I need to talk to you about, though."

"Oh?"

Harry grinned. "I heard your father was on the board."

Draco smirked. Then, he froze. Harry watched in real time as puzzle pieces began to align before Draco's eyes (had he always been so transparent?) Draco's eyes darted to the Gryffindor table, where Neville was still strangely absent, then to the head, where most of the teachers were carefully avoiding all but the most mundane of conversations.

"It won't work, you know." He said instead. "Nothing more than direct threats will shake Dumbledore's control over the school, and even those wouldn't work for long."

"Your father has power." Harry countered. "He might not have as much as Dumbledore, but this time he's got the safety of _children_ on his side."

Draco sat back a bit, apparently trying to visualize the political battle. "It might still not be enough... you know my father's reputation; it is not as if he is likely to be followed by many purely because of events he had no control over. With your vocal support, however..."

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that." Harry said. "I'm still too new to this world to be lending my voice to anybody, no matter how good their word. But I've thought of that, too—would having a petition help? One signed by as many students as possible asking for an investigation into what is going on?"

"A petition?" Draco said.

"Yeah, a little piece of paper that says something like 'we, the students of Hogwarts, do hereby ask that the board of governors launch a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the ollepheist, the children getting ill, and the faculty's silence to not only the students but also the parents on both counts.' Then we get as many people as possible to sign under it—saying they agree with the statement—and have it sent to the board and published in newspapers and stuff."

"That... might be sufficient." Draco said. "I'd have to write my father, though. Let's talk tomorrow after dinner. That should give me plenty of time."

They shook hands over the devilled eggs.

After some more small talk—mostly about how the giant squid seemed to be in a good mood—Harry moved back to his own table to finish breakfast and tamp down his housemates' Pavlovian response to him (or anyone else) having anything to do with the Slytherins.

Harry spent the rest of his free time that day in the library. While finding any information at all about what was going on ended up being a bust—he had no new information on ollepheists at all, and the medical texts the library did have were sorely limited—he did manage to make some headway into understanding ley lines, the giant magical rivers that crisscrossed the earth and affected everyone and everything around it (one of the books he read, among other things, ascribed the more numerous but far weaker ley lines that covered North America to their far smaller numbers of muggleborns, which was an interesting tidbit if only because it actually mentioned magic in the Americas at all.)

In fact, he was in the middle of searching for any other books written by the same author later that week when Hermione came barreling around the corner, and began to speak in an excited whisper.

"Harry! I've been looking all over for you! I couldn't call out for you, of course, but Neville seemed relatively certain you were in the library, so I knew—"

"You found me." Harry grinned. "What for?"

Hermione, because she was Hermione, held out a book.

"Hogwarts: A History?" Harry whispered. "I've read it."

"Yes, but have you read the unabridged version?" She breathlessly whispered back.

That... was a good question.

Harry actually had no idea that there was an _abridged_ version in the first place, and there had been no sign that the one he'd read through—a near carbon copy of the favored book of Hermione's in their first lifetime—was such, but the book Hermione was holding out to him right now was undeniably larger than any title he remembered going by that name.

"Published 1983?" Harry asked to be sure.

"November 1982." Hermione said. "Harry, this book is four times larger."

It was not.

Harry said so.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's a version of the expansion charm," she explained, "so that even large tomes and encyclopedia-sized books can be easily stored. This book is more the size of an encyclopedia than a tome, mind you."

"Where did you even find it?" Harry asked, accepting his own fate of being sidelined for the afternoon and leading the two of them to a small table setting pressed between the books on modern history and those on the toad (and the many, many ways toads could be used, loved, relied upon, hated, cooked, cleaned...)

"It's from Professor McGonagall's personal collection." Hermione explained. "I went to see her after class today to see about what was going on with the illnesses and the troll and everything and she didn't know but when I mentioned confusion over how a troll could have gotten in in the first place—and she did confirm that there was a troll—she suggested I read this. When I told her I had she gave me the unabridged version and said I might find it a mite more helpful." Here Hermione finally began to slow. "I... I know you like history and the like too, so I thought you might enjoy reading it with me."

Harry smiled. "Of course! I'm honored, anyway—I've never heard of Professor McGonagall giving anyone books from her private collection before." This was very, very true. Harry wondered what had changed.

Then they both turned to look at the book.

"I... I don't know where to start." Hermione said. To demonstrate she opened the book and flipped a few pages in to what were clearly only the first and second of a many-page monster of a table of contents. Like she had said, it really was more of an encyclopedia than a tome—the first entry (under the category 'founding' and subcategory 'Godric Gryffindor" was apparently a seven-page write-up of everything known about his ancestry and descendants. Keeping a thumb pressed against the bottom of the page, Hermione used her index finger to select that entry and the book flipped forward a few sheets.

After the title card ("Hogwarts: A History: The Founding: Godric Gryffindor: Family Tree of Known Ancestry and Descendants as Compiled by Bathilda Bagshot, Author") and a several paragraph (and surprisingly detailed) introduction of how she'd come to the information she used in the tree, the rest of the page was taken up by miniscule names and crisscrossing lines and tiny little footnotes that directed you to the bottom of the page where Bathilda explained exactly where that name specifically came from, and whether she thought it trustworthy.

Harry decided then and there that absolutely nothing could convince him that reading through the following six pages (which looked to be more of the same) was in any way a productive way to spend his time.

"Could we start with looking into the troll?" Harry said instead. "We don't know how long this loan is for, after all."

Hermione agreed immediately and flipped back to the table of contents, where both first years began coming through the many entries to find anything relevant.

 **WARDS** was a seventy-three page section that was, somehow, even more rambling than the average wizarding book he'd come across. Still, considering that it matched what they were looking for the most, both tweens dived in.

Harry had just finished the first half of the fourth page when Hermione gasped.

"Look." Hermione said, pointing to the third paragraph on the first page.

"What?" Harry said. He squinted at it—it was a fairly innocuous paragraph, he'd thought, but apparently she had seen something he hadn't.

"What do you mean what?" She snapped, then paused, reconsidering. "I mean, sorry, it's just—read it again, okay?"

Harry read it again.

He still couldn't see what the issue was.

Hermione rubbed her forehead. "Harry... Trolls are Class Four beasts. This paragraph says that 'all beasts, be they Class Three or higher, must not be allowed on Hogwarts Grounds except for cases of a) student protection, b) student education, or c) Ministry order, to be enforced by Ward Type B6 unless wards are under Stage Three."

"But the wards are under Stage Three," Harry said, "the last page said that Hogwarts was attacked so much during the war that after it was over they'd had to let them drop to stage two to give them time to recover to full strength."

" _Yes_ ," Hermione said, "But she also said that the wards would be allowed to recover to full strength at the rate of a little less than a full stage per decade. Harry, the war ended exactly ten years ago the exact date of the attack—after the wards should have been pulled up to stage three."

Harry blinked.

He _really_ needed to pay more attention.

"Huh. Okay, so either the wards haven't recovered—something in the past decade could have sapped them just enough to delay the power-up past Halloween, or the troll somehow came onto the grounds for one of the other reasons."

Actually, Harry's money was on the second option, which was part of the reason the paragraph hadn't sparked anything the first or second time he'd read it. He already knew that there was another troll in Hogwarts, and that that one was (very, very arguably) for "student safety", or (depending on how you wanted to take the ease with which he and the rest of the Golden Trio had first managed to gain access) "student education." Still, it wasn't as if he could tell Hermione that.

"Alright, let's find the section on what, exactly, saps ward strengths." Hermione said.

"I'll grab another book," Harry said, "to see what saps wards in general instead of just whatever this book says about Hogwarts' ones."

He had a sinking feeling that he'd have no choice but to go into this black hole until Hermione had found a suitable answer, so he may as well try to find some additional useful information while he was at it.

Hermione smiled. "Thanks for... doing this with me." She said. "You're the only other one in Gryffindor who willingly reads library books, and the Ravenclaws..." she trailed off. "Anyway, thanks."

"That's what friends are for, right?" Harry said, and then he disappeared into a row of ancient looking books before he had to watch her eyes water.

* * *

 _A/N:_

 _If you have any questions/comments/concerns/ideas/edits, put them in a review and I'll try to answer/read/explain/incorporate/fix them._


	25. Chapter 23 Stats

Go back one chapter to see the new chapter

* * *

 **CURRENT GOALS**

-Dursley Resident—Figure out why you have to live with your aunt and uncle (500 XP)

-Long Overdue—Force the ministry to allow Hagrid to legally perform magic (500 XP)

-Lying Lockhart—Publicly expose Lockhart's lies (500 XP)

-Speak to Me—Have at least 50 skill points in any non-English oral language skill (500 XP)

-Furry Little Secret—Keep Remus's lycanthropy from being exposed (500 XP)

-Burning Hands—Figure out how you killed Quirrell during your first life (500 XP)

-Cause and Effect—Figure out why an Ollepheist returned to the British Isles (750 XP)

-Philosopher's Stone—Keep the philosopher's stone from being destroyed an ensure its return to Nicholas Flamel. (750 XP)

-Dearest Dobby—Rescue Dobby from the Malfoys (750 XP)

-No More Outer Circle Death Eaters—Permanently or legally deal with OCDEs. (750 XP each)

-Dreadful Dementors—Keep the dementors from being placed around Hogwarts (750 XP)

-Crouch, Crouch—Expose both Crouches for their crimes (750 XP each)

-Forced Participation—Prove that you're being forced to participate in the Triwizard Tournament (750 XP)

-1st Year Marks—Get all 'O's your first year of Hogwarts (1,000 XP)

-Quirrellitis—Keep Quirrell from directly being your problem (1,000 XP)

-Possession Sucks—Keep Ginny from being possessed (1,000 XP)

-An Innocent Man—Prove Sirius Black's innocence (1,000 XP)

-Wriggling Wormtail—Prove that Peter Pettigrew is guilty & have him punished for his crimes (1,000 XP)

-Unctuous Umbridge—Keep Umbridge from being a problem, or have her legally dealt with if she becomes one (1,000 XP)

-Brace Yourself—Learn how to protect your thoughts through Occlumency (1,000 XP)

-Tell the Truth—Cause Veritaserum to be more widely used in courts (1,000 XP)

-Mortal Immortality—Figure out how you survived Voldemort the first time (1,150 XP)

-No More Inner Circle Death Eaters—Permanently or legally deal with ICDEs. (1,150 XP each)

-Quash Quirrell—Get rid of Quirrell, either legally or permanently (1,250 XP)

-Professional Standards—Improve the standards of professional behavior for professors (1,250 XP)

-Calmer Fourth Year—Keep from getting forced into the Triwizard Tournament (1,250 XP)

-Fight back—Significantly curb the amount of bullying at Hogwarts (1,500 XP)

-Here Horcrux, Horcrux, Horcrux…—destroy Horcruxes (1,500 XP each)

-Libel and Slander—Keep articles about you accurate (1,500 XP)

-Journalistic Integrity—Improve magical journalism's truthfulness and reach (1,750 XP)

-Improve, Improve, Improve—Help promote scientific innovation in the magical world (1,750 XP)

-Save Wizarding Britain!—To complete this goal the government of magical Britain must be completely reformed to allow for more equal opportunity and fall more in line with the standards of the majority of the rest of the world, at minimum. (1,000,000,000 XP)

-Save the Magical School of Britain!—To complete this goal the main magical school in Britain must rank within the top 50 based on its current state when measured against other magical school's aptitude in 1984. (100,000,000 XP)

-Save Wizarding Europe!—While no magical European country has fallen back as much as Magical Britain, many are well behind their non-magical counterparts as well as the rest of the world in terms of progress. To complete this goal there must be a visible effort by at least three Wizarding countries to move towards more equal opportunity. (100,000 XP per country)

-Save the World!—If you accomplish your goal and your 23 peers accomplish theirs then the experiment will be considered a success and Earth will be allowed to continue. (MAX XP)

 **STATUS**

Level: 19.25

Health: 148/150

Ingestion: 70/100

Excretion: 95/100

Energy: 48/100

 **SKILLS**

(Unspecified Skill Levels: 80) (+5 USL per level) (15 spent)

 **MENTAL**

-Perception: MAX (Recognition and interpretation of sensori stimuli)

-Attention: MAX (Ability to concentrate and manage competing demands)

-Memory: MAX (Ability to remember past events)

-Spoken English: 94 (The ability to use English to communicate and understand orally)

-Spoken French: 22 (The ability to use French to communicate and understand orally)

-Spoken Spanish: 12 (The ability to use Spanish to communicate and understand orally)

-Spoken Latin: 26 (The ability to use Latin to communicate and understand orally)

-Spoken German: 16 (The ability to use German to communicate and understand orally)

-Spoken Snake: 30 (The ability to use the language of snakes to communicate and understand orally)

-Other Languages: 0 (The ability to use any other language)

-Written English: 94 (The ability to use English to communicate and understand in writing)

-Written French: 18 (The ability to use French to communicate and understand in writing)

-Written Spanish: 14 (The ability to use Spanish to communicate and understand in writing)

-Written German: 15 (The ability to use German to communicate and understand in writing)

-Music: 10 (The ability to use an instrument to play music)

-Finance: 57 (The ability to manage money)

-Agriculture: 56 (The ability to work with plants)

-Visual Arts: 19 (The ability to create visual artwork)

-Literary Arts: 48 (The ability to tell a story)

-Biology: 38 (The ability to understand Biology)

-Chemistry: 28 (The ability to understand Chemistry)

-Physics: 21 (The ability to understand Physics)

-Algebra: 56 (The ability to understand Algebra)

-Geometry: 38 (The ability to understand Geometry)

-Trigonometry: 16 (The ability to understand Trigonometry)

-Calculus: 18 (The ability to understand Calculus)

-Engineering: 32 (The ability to apply knowledge to invent, build, maintain, and improve)

-Technology: 20 (The ability to understand and use technological equipment)

-Medicine: 21 (The ability to care for the health of oneself or others)

-Non-Magical British Law: 40 (The ability to understand non-magical British law)

-Magical British Law: 28 (The ability to understand magical British law)

-Psychology: 4 1 (The ability to understand the minds of yourself and others)

-Culinary: 57 (The ability to cook)

 **PHYSICAL**

-Respiratory Endurance: 45 (The ability to gather, process, and deliver oxygen)

-Stamina: 36 (The ability to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy)

-Strength: 33 (The ability of a muscular unit to apply force)

-Flexibility: 38 (The ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint)

-Power: 41 (The ability of a muscular unit to apply maximum force in minimum time)

-Speed: 43 (The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement)

-Coordination: 40 (The ability to combine several movement patterns into a single movement)

-Agility: 48 (The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another)

-Balance: 38 (The ability to control the placement of the body center to its support base)

-Accuracy: 41 (The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity)

-Vitality: 31 (Resistance to physical attacks)

-Flying: 94 (The ability to use a specifically spelled broom to fly through the air)

-Judo: 15 (The ability to understand and utilize the martial art of Judo)

 **MAGICAL**

-Wand Magic: 23 (The ability to use a wand to perform magic)

-Runic Magic: 2 (The ability to use writing to perform magic)

-Staff Magic: 0 (The ability to use a staff to perform magic)

-Oral Magic: 14 (The ability to use speech to perform magic)

-Intent Magic: 47 (The ability to use intent to perform magic)

-Alchemy: 0 (The ability to permanently transform matter)

-Arithmancy: 10 (The ability to use magical math)

-Charms: 71 (The ability to force a target to perform in a way contrary to its nature)

-Divination: 0 (The ability to use one's magic to tell the future through a variety of means)

-Legilimency: 0 (The ability to use magic to read another's mind)

-Occlumency: 8 (The ability to use magic to protect one's mind from Legilimency)

-Potions: 32 (The ability to combine various ingredients to create a potion with a magical effect)

-Transfiguration: 68 (The ability to change the physical form of a target)

-Enchanting: 0 (The ability to permanently add charms and runes to a target)

-Magic: 91 (The ability to force magic to act in a certain way)

-Metamorphmagus: 3 (The ability to change your own physical form. Currently limited to dead skin and epidermal layer)

-Magical Vitality: 88 (Resistance magical attacks)

 **SOCIAL**

-Teaching: 50 (The ability to teach others)

-Negotiation: 16 (The ability to negotiate to a more pleasant outcome)

-Seduction: 10 (The ability to gain another's attention in an amorous way)

-Intimidation: 0 (The ability to intimidate to get a more pleasant outcome)

-Charisma: 28 (The ability to get people to like you)

-Acting: 85 (The ability to pretend or lie)

-Deception Detection: 32 (The ability to notice other's lies, half-truths, and ulterior motives)

-Speech: 36 (The ability to convince, motivate, and otherwise influence others)

 **ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES**

-Boy Who Lived: Harry will be viewed as a celebrity by the magical community.

-Unwanted Nephew: Harry will be mildly neglected by the Dursley family due to his magical nature, the lack of recompense, and the sudden nature of his arrival. This treatment will not descend to abuse due to the government stepping in.

-Odd Eyes: The unnaturally intelligent eyes of Harry Potter may cause sentient, half-sentient, and non-sentient creatures to act differently.

-Controlled Transport: Unless in control, Harry will be unable to comfortably use magical transportation.

-Curse Scar: Harry has a curse scar which was formed from protective runes hit by an overpowered 'dark' cutting curse.

-Parseltongue: Harry can naturally communicate somewhat with snakes.

-Metamorphmagus: You are able to easily change your physical form. [Gained via bonus points]

-Hogwarts' Protection: Hogwarts will aid you if faced against a direct and severe magical attack while within its wards. [Gained via being within Hogwarts' wards]

 **BONUSES**

BONUS POINTS: Unspent: 7. Spent: 17 (1 BP per level)

10 Points: Familiar (You can allow an non-sentient animal to become semi-sentient)

15 Points: Animagus (Congratulations. You can now easily change into a predetermined animal)

10 Points: Bare Necessities (Your needs for food, excretion, and sleep are significantly reduced)

5 Points: Athlete (All physical skills get a one-time five point boost)

5 Points: Mage (All magical skills get a one-time four point boost)

5 Points: Scholar (All mental skills get a one-time three point boost)

15 Points: Multilingual (Congratulations. You are automatically at level 50 on all languages)

10 Points: Improved Senses. (All of your senses are now more advanced than average)

15 Points: Peverell's Descendent (You can now turn invisible whenever you wish)

2 Points: Improved Transportation (You are able to more successfully use magical transport)

2 Points: Additional Inch (You will grow one inch higher than you would normally)

15 Points: Natural Resistance (You are naturally resistant to some magical potions and poisons)

15 Points: Bullet Dodger (You are slightly less likely to be unlucky)

20 Points: Mind Over Body (You can more directly control your body's involuntary actions)

15 Points: Forked Tongue (You can now commit lies of omission under any truth serum)


End file.
